


Duelist Yesterday, Tomorrow's Rock Star!

by ll4nce



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh!, Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's, Yu-Gi-Oh! GX, Yu-Gi-Oh! Series, Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal
Genre: Actual dueling, Alternate Universe, Duel Monster Spirits, Gen, Help Me with Jesse's Accent, How Do I Tag, Now with different summoning methods, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Psychic Abilities, Psychic Duelist, Yu-Gi-Oh Series Characters as Duel Monsters Spirits, please
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-16
Updated: 2018-12-01
Packaged: 2019-06-28 07:51:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 35,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15702972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ll4nce/pseuds/ll4nce
Summary: "Did I have to be Rock Star Card, though?""I think it's neat!"Chazz, former duelist somehow turned into an amnesic Duel Monsters spirit, finally remembers snippets of his past upon meeting Zael, a young duelist who is able to see him. Hunting his missing past, they quickly realize that Chazz isn't the only duelist now trapped in a card.Together, they must fight the hunters that have now arisen...Update 31st October: Vector is now an XYZ monster, Akiza a Synchro monster.





	1. Meeting a Rock Star!

Honestly, he had no idea how long it had been since he talked to another human being. He had no idea when it even started, too. All he knew was that, suddenly, his day mostly consisted of snarling or glaring at the oblivious people either passing through or by him, not noticing him at all. While he remembered that not his days were once not usually spent like this, his actual recollection of what he did or what he was was foggy, like he had been missing glasses and wore earplugs while he experienced them.

He tried to remember more clearly every day, hoping figments of his memory would help him puzzle together how he ended up in this predicament. All he remembered clearly, however, were the words “duel” and “best”, a flash of yellow, green and black and wanting to feel a seething hatred whenever he thought of the color red and chocolate-brown. That was all.

He didn't even know if he could call it pathetic, was the problem. He had no idea how long it had been, so he was unable to measure if the number of things he remembered from his past life was little or much.

Watching in silent rage as laughing teenagers passed, their age about the same as the ghostly form of himself he sometimes saw mirrored in the glass of the windows, he gritted his teeth. It just wasn't fair.

He felt like he, or at least his ghostly appearance, did not look too shabby. His black hair was spiky and curled from his neck to his forehead in a perfect mess, strands of hair pointing in all directions. They were matching the cold and dark grey of his eyes, standing in contrast to his deathly pale, white skin. His shirt and coat, which was missing sleeves he felt like, also shared the color black, only his pants had the color deep jeans-blue, while his shoes were a mix of cold grey and black.

Sometimes, he just stood in front of a window and mused how a handsome guy like him was a ghost while boring people were able to converse and be happy all time, making him a tad miserable. But most of the times, he decided that was just how life is, that he should accept it and get over it. Only to ask himself those same questions the next day. And answer them the same way. Because, well, he just didn't have anything better to do.

And here he was again. Wondering why this girl could talk to her friend in such an uncaring manner while he was suffering like this. Angrily, he tried to strike her, but he knew his hand would just pass through her and the freshly hot and still steaming crêpe in her hand. 

The sight of it actually made his mouth water slightly, well, as much as it was possible for a ghost, that is. While he distinctly remembers those things to be “tasty” he also somewhat recalled that one only has to eat when they were hungry. And he wasn't hungry. Didn't change the fact that he yearned for a simple “tasty” snack in his mouth, just to remember how it was like, to eat something “tasty”. 

With a glare filled with envy, he watched the girls’ retreating backs, the one with the crêpe biting into it as her eyes widened and she started fanning air into her mouth, the crêpe still too hot for her taste. Her female friend just giggled.

Slightly pouting, he turned away from them, acknowledging that staring only made him more miserable as it is, trying to focus on something, anything else.

His eyes found another boy presumably about his age, sharing most of his colors as he wore only black. However, short, dark-blue hair peeking out underneath his cap and shining lilac eyes distinguished the one from another, ignoring his ghostly skin and ghostly being in general.

The human boy had several piercings on his ear, all of them flashing silver in the light of the sun. His earrings were a simple design really, just silver rings on both of his earlobes. His cap was deep black, just like his shirt and pants, both of the latter having several small, intentional cuts and holes, showing little golden skin beneath the clothing. His feet looked relatively small on the black shoes, matching his general slimness. The ghost was able to count three feathers of an unknown bird to him hanging from the stranger’s hair, swaying slightly as he continued walking down the other side of the street.

But what intrigued him the most was the device on the stranger’s left arm. It looked like some kind of portable machine, possibly high tech, somewhat heavy to carry around. He continued to stare at it, wondering why he felt this feeling of familiarity, as suddenly, it was like lightning had struck him. A sequence flooded his mind, he himself, in a blue coat, with the same device on his left hand. Across of him, blurry, but somewhat recognizable, chocolate-brown and red. Another person.

“DUEL!”, they both shouted as they activated their devices, making it eject some kind of disk with five slots to lay something on. 'Cards’ a part of his mind whispered as he took a closer look at the cards in his past self's hand and he felt slight bliss at his memory, only for it to fade just a second later, in time with his past self maniacally smiling at his opponent.

Dissatisfied that the sequence he remembered was so short, he quickly sought out the boy once more, hoping another look at the Duel Disk, his mind supplied, would help him remember more, spotting him turning around the corner.

Following him quickly for a few streets, he quickly noticed that no matter how much he continued staring, it did not evoke any more memories, much to his disdain, making him snarl and let out a small cry of frustration. It somewhat turned into a surprised one as the boy turned around to look exactly at him in wonder, his mouth slightly gaping.

The ghostly appearance quickly checked if there was something going on behind his back, but turning right back around to glare when he heard a slight chuckle, meeting a wide smile and cheerful eyes.

“Surprised I can see you?”, the boy asked grinning, somewhat agitating the ghost in front of him, his eyes narrowing further, his frown deepening. “Aw, don't be like that. I didn't mean it the… uh, mean way?” If anything, it only further distorted the ghostly face in rage, making the blue-haired boy sigh and adjust his cap while looking down, just to continue to smile at him a second later. 

“My name's Zael! You're the Duel Spirit from the Crêpe Shop, aren't you? Nice to meet you! But why have you been following me?” Before the ghost could even protest that no, he wasn't a Duel Spirit, no, he didn't know what that was, and no, he was pretty sure he was once human, the boy’s, Zael’s, face lit up as he shot a big grin at him. 

“Oh! I know! You have no Duelist! And you chose me to be that for you! It's just like Jayce said when cards choose their owner! So cool! Thanks, buddy!” Bubbling laughter escaped his mouth.

Again, the spirit opened his mouth to protest, to say anything, but he once again was interrupted by Zael just running off, making him blink once or twice before dashing after the boy, because, well, he may be the only one he could ever talk to and also, there still was this whole “being a Duel Spirit” mistake he had to fix. He couldn't let the other just call him a Duel Spirit. It somehow felt undignified to him, even if he didn't exactly know what this kind of spirit was, only the yellow, green and black flashes coming back to his mind, unhelpful in figuring anything out.

Seemingly sensing him following, Zael asked in an excited voice: “Where are you? Should I search back at the crepe shop?” And again, before the spirit could answer, how he had no idea what the other was talking about, he had already gasped and started talking again. “Oh my gosh, can you even talk? I'm sorry if-” 

“I can talk! You just never let me come to a word!”, the spirit, who had quite enough of the boy’s babbling, growled out, making the other laugh slightly. “Oh sorry. It's just a thing I do.” Zael stayed somewhat quiet afterwards, the spirit finally having time to explain the misunderstanding from before, but once again, as fate seemed to loathe him today, his open mouth clamped shut when Zael let out a small cheer as he picked up a similar card to the ones he himself was holding in his vision of the past in the alleyway next to the point where he first laid eyes on the other. “There you are!”, he exclaimed happily as he turned the card around, the black-brown backside facing the ground.

Curiously, the spirit glanced over Zael's shoulder, a sneer ready on his face, finally ready to break the truth to the blue haired boy, that he was not Duel Spirit, but instead, his entire form froze as he stared at the image of the card.

It was he himself, alright. Standing in a beam of light, holding an electric guitar, seeing the same black shirt and sleeveless coat, the same jeans, the same black hair and grey eyes, the same pale, white skin, even the same arm bracelets, it was him on the card.

“So cool”, Zael murmured in awe as the spirit's head started spinning. He saw himself playing with those cards. So why was he a card himself? 

He remembered back to his short vision, he and his enemy shouting “Duel!” while holding same cards and having the same disk attached to their arms. He was not supposed to be on one of these cards. He was supposed to be like Zael, running around collecting these. He was supposed to be a Duelist! Not a Monster Card!

If Zael noticed his rising panic and despair, he didn't show it. Instead, he showed his wide grin again. “Thanks for choosing me, Tomorrow's Rock Star!”, he said, tucking the card with the spirit's image into a small box containing even more cards.

“Am I a Duel Monster Spirit?”

The sudden question made Zael jump a bit, before he turned his wide eyes to the Tomorrow's Rockstar, his mouth opened in shock. “You mean you don't know?”

Miserable, the spirit shook its head. “I can't remember a thing. I only remember that I'm supposed to be a Duelist. Not a Duel Spirit”, he whispered, staring at the ground. “I remember holding cards like this.” He pointed at the holster at Zael's hip. “I don't know what happened in between. I was hoping to remember more by following you because of this disk, but it didn't work out.”

Zael looked at him curiously before nodding, seemingly deep in thought. Acknowledging this as a sign to continue talking, the spirit did. “I only remember bits and pieces of my past. The longest memory I've recollected until now was one I witnessed right after seeing your Duel Disk, the memory of myself as a Duelist.”

“So you reconnected with your past when you saw the disk”, Zael hummed thoughtfully, patting the device on his left arm. His hands opened the holster on his hip, revealing the Duel Monsters Cards. “How about now? Does it help to look at the cards?” After a slight shake of the spirit's head, Zael sighed, putting his cards away again.

“Well, how about this. I'll hold on to your card and you come along to my place, and there I'll talk to you about anything I know about Duel Monsters. Maybe this will invoke any memories, what do you say?”

Hopeful, the spirit nodded, trailing behind Zael slowly as he started walking, whistling to himself. But as they walked, the spirit sunk into deep thoughts and with that, let doubts arise from his mind, only voicing them after a short while of silence. “Do you..really believe me?”, the spirit asked, both curious and suspicious, questioning Zael's willingness to help a complete stranger, who, at the same time, was a Duel Monsters Card.

But the other just shrugged, turning around to flash a wide smile. “I have no reason to suspect that you'd be lying.”

“But my story sounds so ridiculous!”

“First time for everything. Also, you're Tomorrow's Rock Star and not Tomorrow's Trickster. You can't be lying if you aren't truly your own person, it's not in their persona of that Duel Monsters Card. And even in the case that you're lying, there's something true about your story, no?”

The spirit stayed silent as they walked past a huge skyscraper, throwing a shadow on both of them and many other people on the street. Busy people entered and ran out, sometimes talking on their phones, sometimes their lips tightly sealed in a frown. He fell back into the pattern of watching people around him, envying them.

It took hearing his voice again that he noticed that they had stopped walking, Zael staring at the blue sky, his hands buried into his pockets. “So Tomorrow's Rock Star… do you remember your name from your past? I don't know, it gets tiring calling you like that all the time and if we're stuck together, you know, as buddies, might as well pick a new one. It doesn't even have to be your former name. Anything's fine.”

“My...name?” Zael nodded and the spirit thought about it, choosing to ignore the swelling urge to comment on the buddy bit. “My name…”, he repeated to himself, feeling dizzy and closing his eyes, a vision appearing before his eyes.

He was wearing white. The Duel Disk was activated and a few monsters were on the field, most of them in white as well. Across him, it was him again. Red and chocolate-brown. “Sorry Chazz”, red and chocolate-brown's distorted voice sounded. “But this is to your best.” His past self sneered at that.

Differing from the other recent memory, this one seemed to leave a bitter taste in his mouth, a sense of shame crawling up his back. It seemed that while this memory also showed a duel with chocolate-brown and red, the circumstances were different. In fact, it might have something to do with an embarrassing bet or some argument, he wasn't sure. All he knew was that no matter what it was, in hindsight he didn't feel very proud of his actions.

Although the memory surely could have been better, at least it solved the mystery of his name that he didn't know he was so curious about until Zael asked.

His vision faded and he opened his eyes again, staring at an expectant Zael, still waiting for his answer.

“It was Chazz. My name was Chazz, call me that.”

\---

“Soooooo, Chazz…”

When the spirit perked up at his name and glanced into his new companion's direction, he was met with a bright grin and admiring eyes. Zael looked up to his floating form in complete awe.

He hadn't stopped fawning over his new “buddy” ever since they had started walking towards Zael's place, sometimes just staring, sometimes just smiling and giggling happily. Which was just a tad creepy, Chazz had to admit, but he didn't necessarily mind it. On the contrary, he sort of welcomed Zael's respect.

Which in turn made him wonder why he liked the feeling of being respected so much. Maybe he just wasn't respected well enough in his past life. Or maybe… chocolate-brown and red flashed his mind again, sitting in a room of red, yellow, blue and ... him. In front of him, adults and three other blurry figures, another one joining them, distinctly reminding Chazz of the ocean’s blue.

“... duel the best student in our academy”, one of the adults droned in a distorted voice, as he saw himself rising at that statement. “I accept!”, he said with a sneer but was quickly left in his seat to sulk as they explained they didn't want him, but the other student. Chocolate-brown and red.

Ocean blue person seemed to brighten at his opponent, smirking at the other while Chazz’s past self was still pouting in a corner, being made fun of some blurs of yellow and white-blue, ignored by the others.

It honestly left a bad feeling in his mouth. Not one in this room seemed to agree that he was the best in that so-called academy. Everyone cheered for chocolate-brown and red. 

But instead of making him really upset, however, it made him just a bit disappointed. As if he was aware and accepted that the other was superior. Even though he knew close to nothing about chocolate-brown and red. Nothing but the fact that they had at least two duels.

He felt miserable.

“Chazz?”

Snapping out from his reverie, he stared into purple-pink orbs, glazed with worry and confusion. Sensing that he had the spirit's attention, he continued talking. “What's wrong? I've been trying to ask you stuff, but you just wouldn't react and just stared into the distance…”

Chazz shook his head. There was really no real reason to tell Zael how he felt. They barely knew each other, plus Zael looked like the kind of person who would laugh at the situation he just saw in his memory. “I was just … thinking about something”, was all Chazz said, looking away.

“Just something? Not gonna tell me the details? 'Cause you did kind of ignore for 5 minutes or something like that to think. About 'Something’.”

Chazz sighed, Zael shooting him a questioning gaze, raising one of his eyebrows in an almost comical way. “ I don't have to tell you anything”, he just said, avoiding Zael's eyes once more, as the other just pouted at the back of his head.

“I'm just trying to help, you know.”

“Yeah, yeah. But I doubt you could even help me with things I tell you. The only thing you can do is to tell me things about Duel Monsters so that I remember stuff.”

Zael cocked his head to the side, crossing his arms and raising his eyebrows. “Riiiiight. Anyway, have you heard about how talking about something can make you feel better? 'cause you looked pretty sad right there. Actually, you looked like you were about to cry-”

“I was not about to cry!”, Chazz snapped, trying to glare at the other only to falter a bit when he saw a kind smile instead of a cocky grin, understanding eyes instead of wrinkles of laughter.

“C’mon Chazz. I'm trying to be your friend, okay? Trust me, tell me!”

At the word friends, a small picture wormed its way into Chazz’s mind, of him, clothes in black, at to chocolate-brown and red’s right side, white-blue behind him and next to him, yellow at the other side. It was really blurry, but he could make out smiling faces. Even on himself. Everyone seemed happy.

“You're doing it again! Chazz, stop ignoring me!” Zael's whiny voice made him look at the boy, angrily stomping with his foot. It made him look like an upset little child, asking for attention.

Chazz shortly pondered how it looked to other people passing them. A small kid trying to get somebody's attention, but that somebody was invisible to them. Must look weird.

“Chazz…!” 

“Huh? Oh yeah stop ignoring, got it. What were you saying?”

Crossing his arms, Zael pouted. “Oh, I was saying how great it is to be friends with you because you listen to everything I say and tell me anything that bothers you ‘cause you trust me and stuff, and also I'm so in love with you.”

“Great. Wait, what?”

“I was being sarcastic. Anyway, what was it this time? Remember who you used to crush on?”

“What? No! I remembered something completely different!”

Only after excited gasp from the other, he noticed his slip up, smacking his own face and groaning. “Hey, that's great!” Zael was back to his bubbly persona in a second, grinning at him. “What was it about?” Well, no going back now. 

Chazz looked away, focusing on the grey street instead of the other’s face. “It was something …” He halted for a second. “About being the best … at my old academy.” This was honestly one of the worst lies he has ever told. Especially because it was basically opposite of what he actually saw. And he showed obvious signs of lying. But Zael, the simple person he was, just believed him in a blink.

“Wow! What kind of academy was it?” Chazz couldn't help the smug grin that spread on his face. “I bet it was a duel academy. Everyone had those Duel Disk.” 

Zael ooh’d at that, his eyes sparkling. “The best at a duel academy! You must be an amazing Duelist! Those things are tough, man, I failed a whole bunch of tests and subjects and finally dropped out. Probably just wasn't one for the smart things. But if you were the best, you must have known a lot about Duel Monsters!” 

The crowd was chanting. Not for chocolate-brown and red, as usual, but for him. “Chazz it up! Chazz it up!”, they cheered, making him stand tall in the light.

“And that's why you don't mess with The Chazz!”, he said with a smirk, his opponent defeated on all fours on the ground.

Chazz laughed out loud, deciding that he should bloat a bit about what he just saw, and pointed a thumb at himself. “Yeah, everyone just called me 'The Chazz’, that's how good I was! I even had my own chant!” Something deep inside him whispered that he was lying, telling half-truths not only to Zael but also himself. He knew he wasn't the best, but honestly … why should he tell the other that? It's not like Zael could ever find out that he lied. Plus only the ‘the best’ part was a lie. The chant and the nickname 'The Chazz’ were real. He just saw.

“Your own chant? You mean like … Chazz Thunder! ...or something like that?” While saying that Zael pumped his fist into the air, even jumping a little higher. Chazz just shook his head. “Well, yes, something like that. But why Thunder?”

Zael shrugged. “Was the first thing that came to my mind. Dunno, what was it?” 

Proudly, Chazz raised his hand. “Chazz it up! Pretty cool, huh?” But the blue-haired boy just raised an eyebrow, much to Chazz’s disappointment. “That's … kinda boring. Sorry.”

“And Chazz Thunder is better?” Zael chuckled lightly at that. “Well, no, I guess not. I'll give you that one.”

Zael started walking again, making Chazz follow wordlessly, but suddenly, he stopped again, looking right into the other's eyes with a smile.

“Say, there's this duel academy around here, too! You know, the one I dropped out of. Wanna go there and look? Maybe it'll invoke more memories!”

Chazz just nodded. “Sounds good to me.”

Zael sighed but was still smiling as he walked ahead again, looking deep in thought as he stared into the sky. “Man, talking about dueling so much made me really wanna duel, you know? I can't wait to try this one!” He glanced at his companion, who was trailing behind him, with a smirk, nearly walking into a pole, but dodging just in time. “If you really were such an amazing Duelist, your card must be pretty neat, too, yeah?”

Opening the holster where he kept his cards in, he took his deck out and looked at them until he found what he was searching for and pulled the card out, the other ones going back to where they came from. “Tomorrow's Rock Star … man, this card looks so cool! You were the best student at your academy and I bet you're going to be the best monster in my deck, too!” Chazz eyes widened a bit in surprise. “But how can you tell? You never played a single combination with Tomorrow's Rock Star, scratch that, you never even used this card in a duel! Do you even know it's effect? Did you read it? I mean-”

“Psh Chazz, what's gotten into you? You were boasting so much until just now! You'll be a great ace card! The ace of my deck, Chazz it up, remember? I can feel it!”

Chazz couldn't help but smile slightly at the boy's enthusiasm, sighing and shaking his head in expiration. “I guess if you're so sure…”

“I'm like 100 percent sure! Great Duelists make great Duel Monsters Cards! And you're a great Duelist! Can't argue with that logic!”

Turning around, he gave Chazz the most mischievous smirk he could muster, signing a peace sign with both of his hands.

“And trust me to use your card in the best way possible, okay? You'll be unstoppable, all the spotlight on you, as an awesome guy like you deserves it! You'll be Tomorrow's Rock Sta- OUCH!”

Chazz could barely stifle his laughter. This time, Zael was unable to dodge a pole in time, crashing headfirst into it. He had stumbled a few steps back and was holding the side of his head which collided with the metal, whining and moaning in pain.

He decided that maybe being a Duel Monsters Spirit wasn't so bad after all. 

\---

The school was gigantic. As they entered the school, Zael explained that most of the students were finished for today and that they would go home, speaking a bit more subdued as he fixed his cap more than necessary, glancing around nervously.

It made Chazz realize that maybe Zael wasn't so comfortable with going back here, after all, he did say he dropped out, so he might be ridiculed by the people here. He opened his mouth to say something but closed it again when somebody crashed against Zael, all of his books and cards spreading on the floor. He was apologizing profusely, while Zael only muttered a “No problem”, helping him collect his things. 

He was wearing red. Just like … “Slifer …”, Chazz whispered, making Zael glance up to him with a slight smile. The student took off, leaving the two of them behind, Zael's attention back on him. “You remember something?”

“Slifer … was red and they were the weakest. Ra Yellow, the middle … and Obelisk Blue …” He remembered the first memory he saw when he spotted Zael at the Crêpe Shop. “... They were the best. I was wearing blue in a vision I had. I was an Obelisk!” Zael laughed slightly at his revelation. “Well, if you were the best in your academy, of course, you were an Obelisk. They are the elite of a duel academy after all.”

He glanced around as if to see if anyone noticed his laughing. “But glad you remember something. Oh, we should do a school tour!” His mood seemingly raised, Zael stalked ahead, adjusting his cap once more and then turning back to his companion. “What do you want to see first? Cafeteria…” He counted off his fingers with every suggestion he had. “Classrooms, gym, library, school shop, uh…” Zael looked troubled for a second like he was trying to think of something. “Yeah, and then there's the duel stadium. What do you want to see?” 

“...duel stadium”, Chazz murmured, Zael nodding and leading the way. The more they walked around the academy, the more the vision of his past were sharpening, the blurs of red, yellow and blue turning into students with their uniform, only the faces still blurred out. Only chocolate-brown and red and the other ones he saw in his 'friends-vision’ were still completely unrecognizable, just like the adults and the four other students on the stage when he found out that he wasn't, in fact, the best.

“Here we are! Cool, huh?” At Zael's chippy voice, Chazz looked up to see a dueling field in the middle surrounded by multiple seating possibilities. He saw himself, his opponent chocolate-brown, his opponent a blurry yellow, his opponent in a black suit, his opponent in white-blue. His eyes widened at all the images flooding his mind at once, gasping slightly.

Zael looked at him curiously, before glancing around, grinning. “Say, there's no one here! You wanna go up there and just stand on one of the sides to test what it feels like?”

At Chazz’s nodding, Zael cheered a little and jumped up to the left side, beckoning his companion to join him with a hand, pointing to the other side. When Chazz took his place, Zael activated his Duel Disk with a grin.

“C’mon, duel!”

But to Zael's disappointment, Chazz just shook his head and floated over to the blue haired Duelist. “Nothing?”, he asked while he deactivated his Disk again, sitting down cross-legged. Chazz shook his head. “I remembered stuff when we first arrived here. Seems like my academy had a similar room. I saw myself … going up against various people. In a room just like this. But I couldn't see who they were.”

Zael seemed to silently think before jumping up again. “Aw, shucks. I guess we just have to go around more.” Chazz nodded at that, so they left the stadium. 

“So, where to, Chazz? We can go anywhere you want. Uh, in this school I mean-”

“You here to pick me up or what?” Chazz looked up to see where the alien voice came from, spotting a blue haired boy in a blue uniform, mischievous glinting emerald eyes, hands at his hips and a sly smirk on his face. “Aerrow!”, Zael called out, but Chazz wasn't able to hear him anymore. 

Instead, a vision filled his mind, a vision of a teal haired boy, his hair reminiscent of the blue of the ocean, his eyes green, green like emeralds, his smile foreign and charming. “Hey, Y'all!” He said with a distinct accent. “What are you fellas up to today?” It was the first person Chazz was able to make out clearly.

“Yeah, don't worry about that. He does that a lot. Whenever he remembers something or thinks about something … actually, scratch that. He ignores me all the time”, said Zael, using his snippy voice again and making his friend chuckle lightly.

“I guess I can understand him. You do get annoying after a while.”

Chazz’s curious eyes looked at Aerrow, only to jump a bit when the student turned and locked eyes with him. “I'm just going to assume that you didn't hear anything when I first introduced myself. So I'm going to do it again. My name is Aerrow Anderson, I’m a student here. I'd like to call myself Zael's best friend. He always used to come running to me when he had a problem in school.”

Chazz so was stumped for a second, Zael's whining in the background faded out. “You can see me?” Aerrow rolled his eyes. “Well, yes. Zael is not the only person on the planet who can see Duel Spirits.”

The ex-Obelisk decided that staying silent was the best answer he could give. 

“Hey! Don't talk to my ace card like that!”, Zael cried in protest, making Aerrow laugh. “Yeah, yeah, sorry. Please accept my apology. Say, want to go anywhere else to talk? I don't want to look like a complete idiot in here talking to air. I have a reputation to uphold.”

“Pffff, yeah, if your reputation is 'that one lucky bastard’!” Aerrow laughed and winked at his friend. “That one is true as well. Also, I can't believe you just walked into here with just a cap as a disguise. Everyone must have recognized you!” 

Zael shook his head. “Nobody tried to talk to me! Plus the simplest disguise is sometimes the best disguise!” They both laughed, Aerrow's hand lightly swatting his partner on his back.

With a wave, he beckoned both of them to follow him, leading them out of the school. It was kind of disappointing for Chazz, as he was hoping to explore more and possibly gain more memories back, but he followed wordlessly nonetheless, getting an apologetic glance from Zael, who seemed to have noticed his feelings and a muttered “tomorrow”.

Aerrow led them to a park, waving them to a small table with two chairs in the middle of a green grass field, surrounded by bushes and trees. They followed the small pathway of stone that led there, Aerrow sitting down left first with a sigh, Zael taking the other chair while Chazz decided to float somewhere next to Zael or behind him.

“Alright, we can talk here in peace. Say, want to introduce yourself?”, he turned to look at Chazz. “I already did.”

Chazz looked at him warily before nodding, albeit a bit tense. “I'm The Chazz. As you know, I don't remember much, but I remember being an Obelisk Blue at my old academy and that I was the best of them all. Nice to meet you, Anderson.” 

At his last sentence, Aerrow, who was tense before, narrowed his eyes to thin slits, the corner of his mouth going down. Zael's “uh-oh” was ignored by both parties. “That's harsh”, Aerrow finally spoke, “calling me by my last name and not even giving me one I could call you back with. How unpleasant.”

Chazz sneered at him. “I can't tell you what I don't remember. Stop being such an ass about it.” Fingers tapped the table in a rhythmic manner, reminding of an inpatient woman waiting for an explanation. “Me, being an ass?”, came the response. “Sorry, your Majesty, but I-”

“Hey! Aerrow what's gotten into you? Anderson is your name and you usually don't get so upset if someone's calling you that. Why be so hostile? Don't show 'em your bad side like this!”

Zael turned to Chazz with a slight pout. “And you! I know Aerrow can be … infuriating, but try to be nice, okay? If you don't make him show his bad side, he is a good guy!”

Both of them just death glared at the other party, Zael looking between them helplessly. “Seriously, whaaaaat? At least try to get along…”

It was Aerrow who relented first, who stopped their death glare match with a wave of his hand. “I guess I'm sorry. Just the thought a rampant show off calling himself The Chazz tagging along Zael, who believes everything anyone says, makes me somehow feel angry.”

Chazz gritted his teeth. “Oh no, my bad. I hope you can forgive me, I'll tell you my last name as soon as I remember it, Anderson.” 

“Good thing we're fine now. Because I tell you, fellow Obelisks should stick together, yeah? You and me, The Chazz.” 

Zael sighed, his head supported by his hands on the table, closing his eyes. “Gods, just stop.”

“Fine.” Aerrow also nodded along, but the tension was still there, making things a whole bit awkward. “Why don't you get along with my best friend?”, Zael whispered to Chazz in a whiny voice, making the other shrug before answering: “He just kinda rubs me in the wrong way.”

“You don't have to get along with everyone”, Aerrow, who heard them, added. Chazz nodded profusely. It seemed that was the only thing they agreed on. 

Zael groaned into the following silence, starting to rock his chair, not listening to Aerrow's protest and warnings.

“Zael”, Chazz suddenly said, making the other stop rocking his chair and look up to him, which in turn made Aerrow a bit miffy. “I remembered someone's face.”

Zael cheered a little, his eyes sparkling as he asked for details. Chazz threw a glance at Aerrow before starting to talk again. “I think I remembered him because he looks a lot like Anderson. He had blue hair and green eyes, too. His haircut was pretty similar as well. And he was there at one of the previous memories, too.” 

When they chose chocolate-brown and red to be the best student instead of him, he was one of the four students on the stage, wearing a blue vest, white shirt with frilled cuffs at the wrists of his sleeves, black pants held by a white belt and brown boots. Chazz was able to make out his face, so he was able to see the smirk that crossed his face, looking up to chocolate-brown and red's direction.

“Did you get his name?” To Zael's disappointment, Chazz shook his head.

“But he had some kind of southern accent. You know, Y'all and stuff.” Zael and, to his surprise, Aerrow both seemed to think at that statement. “I don't know a person who looks like me and has a southern accent. Actually, I'm pretty sure I know no one with a southern accent. And no one who looks like me. Sorry.” He shrugged and went to check his phone, Zael nodding along. “I'm sorry, Chazz. I can't think of anyone with those criteria as well.

All of them sighed before Aerrow suddenly spoke up, phone still in his hand. “Say, it's getting pretty late. We should go home.”

“Oh, you're right. I hope they don't get too worried about me…” Zael said, having stood up to glance at Aerrow's phone and stretching his arms, his friend only chuckling. “If I know them correctly, they probably already called the police.”

“Not again!”

They laughed together, Aerrow also standing up. “Well, was nice talking to you again. I'm sure Jayce will be around next time you visit the academy. He was just sick today. Bye Zael, Chazz.” He waved and left in the direction of the academy, Zael waving back and going in the other direction. After a while, it began to darken, only Zael's mindless talking to be heard.

“Man, I missed Aerrow. He’s always so busy because of school. And Jayce. He's always with Jayce. And I don't wanna be around him when he's around Jayce.” Chazz chose not to comment on the last part of Zael's exclamation. 

“But phew, now we can finally go to my place. We got pretty sidetracked there, huh. I can't wait to show you my place! You'll like it. Maybe. Wow, now I'm sure you won't like it. Huh.”

Chazz rolled his eyes. “You're babbling again.” 

“Yeaaaaah, I do that a lot.” Zael laughed in a good-natured way. “I dunno, it has never been any different for me-” Chazz, whose eyes have been focusing the ground ever since they parted with Aerrow, looked up in alarm as Zael's sentence ended with a terrified and very unmanly shriek, witnessing his companion jump away from his standing spot, glaring past the spot where he just stood while taking a few steps backwards.

“Who's there!”

It was a man in his twenties. He was wearing black only, boots, pants, coat, gloves, and hat, which was obscuring his face. “Hello, Blackbird. Miss me?”

Zael tensed and took another step backward, gritting his teeth. “Can't say I did. Maybe I just need a little help remembering. Take off your hat, would you?”

Chazz watched their exchange with a hint of worry. There was no one close right now, the park abandoned and silent. If something should happen to Zael, he wouldn’t be able to do anything, as he was a spirit. All he could maybe do is find Aerrow and get help, but he sure didn't know where he lived. 

“Zael, maybe we should run…”, he whispered, but at the same moment, the man in black slowly took his hat off, Zael gasping. “Hey, you're Mistah X! I've seen you on stage before. What happened?”

The man, Mr. X, went from smiling maniacally into growling furiously in just a second, took a step towards Zael, but Zael stepped back at the same time so that the space between them stayed the same.

“You have the gall to ask me about that? Ever since I lost that duel against you, nobody wants to sponsor me anymore! Don't tell me you don't remember!”

Zael looked unsure for a second. “I, uh …”

The man snarled. “You ruined my life and you don't even remember? You're just as cold as they say. But I will avenge everyone, everyone who lost everything because of you!”

With a face contorted by fury, the man activated his duel disk. “Face me, Blackbird! Let's Duel!” 

“Whaaat? Why duel me now? What would you ever get out of it? Or what would I get out of this?” Zael continued backing off, his eyebrows raised in confusion. He tried to look behind him casually, to see if he could just bolt like Chazz suggested.

“I don't intend on giving you a choice. Don't think I didn't notice your little friend over there.” Chazz, feeling slightly offended, shouted: “I'm not little! I'm The Chazz!”, but glanced around curiously if Mr. X didn't mean another person. 

“You see, Blackbird, this friend of yours is special. It's no ordinary Duel Spirit.” His hand hovers his deck, which glowed a little. “I know this as I have one myself. They are extraordinarily strong. My losing streak suddenly stopped once I found this card!” He laughed, his hand raking his thick hair back, a predatory smile on his face. “And my card told me that you have one too, Blackbird. You know, it was quite convenient for me. I was able to conduct my revenge on you for throwing me out of business, “, he pointed a finger at Zael. “and I could win another one of those powerful cards!”

Chazz eyes widened. “Zael, the card he possesses knows a lot more about this stuff than I do!” Zael nodded, his face tense and his posture showing that he was ready to run if he had to. “Sure looks like it. And what do you want me to do about it?” 

Urgently, Chazz pointed at Mr. X, glaring at Zael. “Duel him about the card! The winner gets both or something!” Zael's eyes widened slightly. “But if I lose, you'll have to go with him!”

Chazz snarled at that, floating in front of Zael to look him right in the eye. “Don't even think that way. You beat him before, right? Just do it again! I trust you.” The blue haired boy brightened at Chazz's last statement, smiling happily. “You trust me?” Realizing what he just said, he just pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed, avoiding Zael's awestruck eyes. “Well, … urgh. Don't make me say it again.”

“Yessir!” Zael's slight laughter made Chazz rolled his eyes and crossing his arms, still holding to look into the distance instead of at the other. “And if you lose, whatever. I can still talk to the other spirit. It's only you who loses because you lose an awesome card like me.” His companion just continued giggling. Chazz thought he may or may not have popped a spirit blood vessel. “Stop giggling like a school girl and duel him!”, he ordered. It might have made Zael laugh even harder.

It took another minute before Zael calmed down, finally clearing his throat to get Mr. X’s attention, who had watched their exchange in complete silence. Chazz could even swear he didn't even move an inch, but that might be exaggerating on his point. 

“Okay, Mr. X, I accept your duel and I'll give you the chance to act upon your revenge. But I do have a condition. The winner gets both of those special cards you were talking about, no tricks! Deal?”

Mr. X just nodded and smiled in a not so welcoming way. “Deal.”

“Let's go then!” Zael activated his duel disk. 

“Duel!”, they both shouted in unison.

“I'll go first, as you are the challenger. I draw!” Looking at the six cards in his hand, Zael contemplated what he should do. Chazz watched behind him, not quite sure how to play, but feeling a sense of familiarity.

“First of all, I'll summon Rock Star Pianist in Attack Mode!” Chazz watched as the monster, 1400 attack points, and 1100 defense points, rose. “I'll play 3 face down cards. Your move!”

“Hmph. My turn! Draw!” Mr. X smirked at his cards, giving Chazz a really bad feeling, but when he wanted to tell Zael about it, he was interrupted. “I'll summon Rock Star Groupie in Attack Mode! Rise and shine!” It was a monster with 900 attack points, meaning it was weaker than Zael's Monster. The raven-haired boy didn't have any time to think about why X would do that, however, as he got the answer right away. 

“Now I'll activate his effect! I can look at the first five cards of my deck. If there's a Rock Star Monster among them, I can special summon one!” X took the five cards and smirked, pulling one of them out. “Luckily for me, there was a monster! I'll play Rock Star Girl in Attack Mode!” He shuffled his deck again.

It was a monster that was stronger than Zael's, with 2000 attack points. But it was barely on the field when it lost 500 of them, still stronger than Rock Star Pianist, however. “Because I have another Rock Star Monster, sadly she loses 500 attack points. But no matter, as I'll play this! Rock Star Bodyguard Inspection! If I tribute a Rock Star Monster, I can destroy two spells or traps on the field. I tribute Rock Star Groupie and destroy the left and middle of your face down cards!”

Zael tsed as he sent both of the face down cards he had set, a trap and spell card, to the graveyard. “And now, my Rock Star Girl will attack your monster! Go, Screech!”

Rock Star Girl was getting ready for her attack, but Zael interrupted it. “Still have face down card left and what better time to activate it than now? I activate my trap, The Rising of a new Star! By tributing one Rock Star monster on my field, I can summon one Rock Star from my hand! Neat, huh? I summon Rock Star Girl by tributing Rock Star Pianist! And my Rock Star Girl is way more awesome than yours!” 

X narrowed his eyes. “Fine. I'll cancel my attack and set two cards face down. Your move.”

“Oh yeah, my turn! I don't even understand why you're using Rock Stars! There my thing! Get your own deck!” Mr. X snarled, while Zael just smirked at him. “I draw!”

“I summon Rock Star Groupie in attack position! You should know his effect.” Zael looked at the cards, silently thinking about his options. “Alright, I'll summon this! Rock Star Veteran! And when he's special summoned, all my Rock Star Monsters who have a lower level than he has got a boost of 500 attack and defense points! And because he has a whopping level of 8, both my Rock Star Girl of level 6 and Rock Star Groupie of level 3 get the boost!”

Zael had three monsters on his field, Veteran, with 2100, Groupie, with 1400 and Girl with 1800 attack points. X had only one Monster, but it was stronger than all of Zael's, with 2300 attack points.

“None of your Monsters can defeat my Rock Star Girl! You should know that she gets weaker with every Rock Star on your field, but stronger with every Rock Star on your Graveyard!”

Zael just waggled with his finger, a sly grin on his face. “I know, she gets 300 attack points for another Rock Star in the graveyard while she loses 500 per one on the field. Don't forget that Rock Star cards are my thing, X.”

X roared in anger. “I used them way before you even were on stage, you little show off! I was once the star of the Rock Star Stage!”

“But I did it better and they dropped you like a hot potato! Watch! I activate my spell, Hard Training! With this, I can choose any Rock Star in my deck and remove it from play, but after 2 Standby Phases, I can add them to my hand.” Zael glanced at Chazz with a smile, who just looked back at the other with a smug expression. “I choose Tomorrow's Rock Star! See you in a bit, Chazz!” Chazz nodded and disappeared, as he was removed from play. “And now I'll activate my spell Swords of Revealing Light! Thanks to this card, you won't be able to attack for 3 turns! Yeah!”

X gasped at the glimmering swords that dropped down around him and his monster, glaring at Zael. “Your move!”

“I draw. And I activate my spell, Taking a break! With this card, I'll be able to take my Rock Star Girl back to my hand.” 

“But why?”, asked Zael, confused at his opponents move. “You'll see. I just needed more space for my better monster! Come, Radiant Rock Star!” The younger boy let out a gasp of surprise at the new monster. He had never heard of this card. “Haha! Look, Blackbird, isn't this card wonderful? Before I picked it up I was nearly at the end. Nobody wanted to sponsor me and I lost every duel I started. But ever since getting this, I've been undefeated! And it gave me a chance to duel you and avenge mine and everyone’s suffering! It's perfect!”

While X laughed, Zael took a closer look at the card. If this really was a card like Chazz, there was a chance they came from the same universe and could exchange information. It did look a lot like Aerrow, Zael thinking back to the description of the person Chazz was able to see in his memories, so there was a chance that this Duel Monsters Card ….

“Because I can't attack, I'll just end my turn.”

“Okay, my turn. I draw.” The Monster only had 1900 attack points, and Veteran had 2100. Maybe he could destroy it and attack directly with Girl and Groupie…

“Okay, I'll attack your Radiant Rock Star with my Rock Star Veteran!”

“Stop! I activate my trap! Living Legend! When this card is activated, I only have to remove a Rock Star Card from play from my graveyard, then I can choose a monster which will be equipped with this trap, it cannot be destroyed by battle! I remove my Rock Star Groupie and equip this card to Radiant Rock Star!”

Mr. X still took 200 damage, but he laughed it off. “You'll see the power of my Radiant Rock Star next turn, just wait …” He laughed like a maniac again. Zael was left gritting his teeth. “I play a face down card and end my turn.”

“It's my turn! I draw! And now, my Radiant Rock Star's effect activates! During my Standby Phase, I can discard up to 3 Rock Star Monster from my hand to the graveyard, it will gain more effects the more I discard.” 

X started to pull out one of the cards in his hand, placing them in the graveyard. “One. My monster gains 400 attack points.” He threw another one down. “Two. It will do piercing damage if it attacks a monster in defense position.” With a triumphant grin, he discarded one more card. “Three. It can attack twice in one battle phase!” 

Zael gulped. Now he wasn't able to attack Radiant Rock Star anymore, as he had more attack points than any of his monsters, sitting at a proud 2300 attack points. “Sadly, all those effects will be reset after your End Phase and I'll have to throw new monsters from my hand to the graveyard in my Standby Phase to gain those effects again, but oh well. It can't be helped.”

“But I still have Swords of Revealing Light!”

X chuckled. “Not long now, boy. I activate my face down card, Mystical Space Typhoon! It'll destroy your spell!”

“No!”, Zael gasped out, only able to stare in horror as his swords were removed from his opponent's side, leaving nothing but a little glimmer. “Yes! And now my Radiant Rock Star will be able to attack! Go, destroy his Rock Star Girl with Radiant Solo!” 

“Argh!” 

“And that's not all, give em an encore! Destroy Rock Star Veteran!”

All of Zael's monsters were at the complete mercy of X’s Rock Star, being destroyed and costing him a total of 700 life points. And he was left only with Rock Star Groupie, who had only 900 attack points without Veteran’s buff. 

“I'll activate Cutting the Weak! By banishing a level 1 or 2 monster from my deck, I can draw one card for every level! I banish Rockstar Kid of the level 2, so I can draw to cards. And that ends my turn. Your move, little Blackbird.”

“I'll get you back! I draw!” Zael glared at X’s smirk. “I'll wipe that off your face! Remember, this is my second Standby Phase since I activated Hard Training! I'll be adding Tomorrow's Rock Star to my hand!” Chazz appeared next to him, looking slightly worried. “Zael … what happened? Where did your monsters go?”

Zael shrugged. “Just look at his side. His monster destroyed them all.” At the sight of the monster on X’s side, Chazz gasped, urgently whispering: “Zael, it's him, I saw him in my vision, the one with the southern accent!” And Zael nodded. “Yeah, thought so. He does look a lot like Aerrow.” 

Their conversation seemed to interest the Radiant Rock Star, who perked up to lock eyes with Chazz, recognition flashing in both of their eyes. However, they chose to not say anything.

“Anyway, sorry Chazz. I gotta remove you from play again.” Chazz snarled at that. “Again? This better be good.”

Zael nodded, showing him a thumbs up and smiling. “I activate Tomorrow's Rock Star’s effect. When I control an open Rock Star Monster, I can remove it from play. In my next Standby Phase, I can special summon it to my field.”

X laughed at that. “There won't be a next Standby Phase for you. I'll finish you, next turn!”

“Ts! No way! I'll play a face down card, and I change Rock Star Groupie’s position to defense. I end my turn.”

“Hahaha! I'll draw!” He smiled at his cards, satisfied. "I discard my entire hand of monsters to my graveyard. With this, all of Radiant Rock Star's effects are activated!” He laughed again, louder and messing with his brown hair with his hands. “You're done for! Go, attack Rock Star Groupie!”

“I activate a trap! Rock Star Determination! If a Rock Star monster is destroyed this turn, all the battle damage will be halved for all the other attacks!”, Zael shouted, as his trap revealed, giving him one more turn to play as his life points dropped down to 1900 when Rock Star Groupie was destroyed by X’s Monster, then to 700 with the following direct attack.

“Hahaha! You're just delaying the inevitable. How pathetic, little Blackbird”, X laughed, his hair messy and his posture crooked.

“You're wrong! Because you haven't finished me this turn, I can still draw one more card! And that card might decide everything! Plus …” Zael smirked. “I can summon my ace card! Yeah! Don't tell me you forgot?” X seemed to pale at that statement.

“Y-you can't do anything!”, he shouted, his voice hoarse. “My monster can't be destroyed because of my trap! There's nothing you can do!

“We’ll see about that!”, Zael laughed. “I draw! And now - Chazz, the spotlight is on you! With the effect of Tomorrow's Rock Star, I will special summon this card in attack position to my field! Arise, Tomorrow's Rock Star!”

As Chazz was summoned to the field, a strange sense of power overwhelmed him, making him look at Zael in slight confusion, who just cheered at him happily. “Welcome back Chazz! How does it feel, being summoned to the field after being out of the game for so long?”

“It feels good …” Chazz murmured. “I feel powerful, strong!” Zael chuckled at that. “Well, can't hurt to make you even stronger, no? When Tomorrow's Rock Star is special summoned through his own special effect, all Rock Star Monster on the field but Tomorrow's Rock Star will be destroyed. Including yours!”

“What!”

“That's right, your trap protects them from being destroyed by battle, but this is an effect! Show'em what you can do, Chazz!”

Chazz shrugged and played a few tunes on his guitar, once the music reached Radiant Rock Star, it was destroyed and the trap along, leaving X’s field wide open. 

“And that's not all! Tomorrow's Rock Star adds the attack points of the monsters destroyed this way to his own, meaning he has Radiant Rock Star's 2300 on top of his own 2500, making 5800 attack points!” 

“No …”, X whispered. “No, NOOOOO! I can't lose again …! I can't lose this card! N-not like THIS…!”

“Sorry, brother”, Zael said in a good-natured voice. “But you brought this upon yourself. Chazz, direct attack! Thunderous Solo!” Chazz nodded, a smug grin on his face as he let his new powers play his guitar, making them shoot thunderbolts in the opponent’s direction.

“NOOOOO!” With his last scream, X’s life points dropped to zero, his body collapsing on the cold ground, all of his card scattering on the ground. Even after a while minute, he didn't move, making Zael somewhat worried and Chazz roll his eyes. 

“Should I call an ambulance?” 

“Just do. And while we wait for them to arrive, we can take the card he promised us.”

“I do feel kinda bad for him. He relied on this card. If I take it, he might never make it back into business.”

“Who cares? I don't.”

“You're so cold.”

“I'm a spirit.”

“...”

“..."

“Fine, I'm taking it.”

The moment Zael found the card and took it in his hand, the teal haired spirit shot out of it, tackling Chazz in a crushing hug, making Zael gasp and Chazz splutter. “Hey Chazz! I'm so glad ya hangin’ around here! I thought I was gonna be all alone!”

“Urgh! Great! Now introduce yourself to Zael! And let go of me!”, Chazz ordered his face red, futile attempts of prying the other spirit off him the cause.

“Uhhh, yeah. I'm Zael Black. I'm a Duelist. Uhh…” Finally, the spirit let go of Chazz to look at Zael, green eyes glinting and his smile warm. “Howdy, Zael! I'm Jesse Anderson. Call me Jess or Jesse, whatever you prefer!”

Zael's eyes widened, asking: “Wait you're an Anderson, too?” But quickly noticing that Jesse wasn't paying any attention, as he went back to hugging Chazz, the raven-haired teen’s screams of protest loud and angry, making Zael roll his eyes. “Oh, just forget about it.”

Watching the two spirits, one trying the peel the other off them unsuccessfully, while the other just clung in the happiness of meeting the other, made Zael smile fondly.

“Oh boy. Now I have two Duel Monster Spirits ignoring me all the time.”


	2. Slifer Slacker and Obelisk Oppressor

In the midst of the dark night, a hunched person left the hospital, his mood in miserable and awful. He hadn't felt that bad ever since his sponsors had laid him off.

After he woke up, he had rushed to check his deck; only to notice that his card was gone. Blackbird must've taken it. It was part of the deal, after all.

Still, he couldn't help the seeping disappointment that soaked him from head to toes, making him shed a silent tear on his way back home. Kissing his come back dreams goodbye, he shuffled home looking only at the ground in front of his feet, only snapping out of his reverie when he bumped into someone.

“S-sorry”, he stuttered, making an effort to move past the other, but he was stopped by an arm of his wrist. 

“Mistah X”, the other person growled out, making him wonder if it was a past hater or anyone else that recognized him from his days on the stage. “I'm here to win over the card. Duel me.”

It made him confused until he remembered what had transpired previously on the evening. He had been acting rather crazed himself in pursuit of the card that Blackbird possessed. Meaning, the card this man was talking about was probably the “Radiant Rock Star” card he had lost today. 

“I'm sorry”, he started to explain, but the other's grip tightened. “I won't take ‘no’ for an answer.” 

To his horror, he was able to make out his Duel Disk activating itself on his left arm, the stranger pushing him away to do the same. 

With a shriek of terror and the realization that he had finally been released, he tried to run, only to be hit with a slight shock, leaving him gasping on the ground, looking up to the stranger with wide, fear-stricken eyes.

“I told you, I'm not taking no as an answer. Don't worry, after you dueled me for the card, I have no reason to keep the electricity connected with your duel disk up. It'll all be over once you lose. So man up and face me!”

With shaking legs he stood up. He had no choice. “Duel!”, he called, his smirking opponent doing the same.

\---

“Wait, you're actually a Rock Star?”

Zael, who was sitting on his couch, legs up his small coffee table, let out a loud laughter, turning to Chazz, floating behind the coach, eyes widened and mouth hanging open. Jesse, also sitting on the couch, or rather, pretending to sit, chuckled softly.

“You realize this now? After spending an entire day with me? Really?”, he gasped out in between laughter, making Chazz turn red in shame. “Yeah well, I never asked and you never told me! And you weren't doing Rock Star stuff! How should I know!”

“Yeah, cause Mistah X didn't talk to me the whole time using my alias. And we were not talking about Idol business all the time. And this place is totally not a Luxus suite and completely normal for a 15-year-old like me. And we it's not like we went through a whole bunch of security and a worried manager to get here. And…”

“Shut up, I get it!” Jesse and Zael just laughed at him. Chazz just faced his back to them, his arms crossed, eyes closed and teeth gritted.

He looked at the Television Jesse and Zael were looking at over his shoulder, a picture of a smiling Zael in the news. “...Popular Singer 'Blackbird’ is taking a break to complete his education…”, the reporter said, making Zael screech in protest. “Education? I'd never leave my fans for something so dumb!”

“What did ya leave yar fans for? Oh lemme guess, duelin’, right?”, Jesse said with a bright grin, Zael grinning right back at him, jumping up from his couch and nearly hitting his leg on his table. “Aw, you know me so well already, Jess! I wish I could hug you!”

Jesse laughed, shrugging with his shoulders at the same time. “We can preten’ to be huggin’!” 

“Yeah!”

Rolling his eyes, Chazz groaned, deciding to stop their pathetic act by grabbing Jesse by the shoulder and pulling him away from a certain protesting bluenette, making him turn towards him. “Stop being complete morons! Let's do rational things. Rational things like … urgh, just tell me everything you remember, Jesse.”

The teal haired spirit seemed to think about everything for a second, until he nodded, making Zael cheer and turn his television off with the remote. “Storytime!”, he called, patting the space next to him on the couch, making Jesse chuckle and Chazz roll his eyes while they both moved closer. “Tell Chazz his last name first!”

“Uh, sure, it's Princeton. Why ya askin’?”

“It was a promise he made with my best friend.” Chazz tched and rolled his eyes. “Now tell me the rest.”

“So, I wasn't at yar academy until ya were in the midst of ya third year, ‘cuz I am an exchange student, yea? I don't know what happened before.”

Chazz just shook his head. “You can start by telling what kind of academy I attended.” For a second, Jesse just stared at the other with a slightly confused smile, but then he started laughing. “Ya really don't remember a thing, huh?”

The raven-haired teen’s face soured just a bit. “Well, no shit. Stop being a jerk and tell me!”

Still chuckling, Jesse shook his head and continued talking. “Well, Y'all were attendin’ Duel Academia, pretty much the best duel academy there is! It's on an island surrounded by a whole lot of water! When I first got there, I was so impressed!”

“I don't know anything about a duel academy on an island!”, Zael called in, looking deep in thought. Jesse shrugged. “I'm just tellin’ how I remember stuff. Anyway, I became friends with Jaden … one of yar besties! Y'all were always hangin’ around each other. Must be ‘cuz we all were able to see Duel Monsters Spirits!”

“I was able to see Duel Monsters Spirits?”, Chazz asked in a surprised voice, a second later an incredulous sounding “I had a bestie?” followed. To both statements, Jesse nodded enthusiastically, making Chazz's eyebrows raise in slight disbelief. “Jaden was like a magnet! Everybody loved him. He had a whole bunch of besties. Like ya and me, then the short kid called Sy, his not-girlfriend female friend Lex, then the smart kid Bas, even though I only know him from the stories Jay told me, then the dino man Ty, the bro of Lex, Atty, and the bro of Sy, Zane, then his other female friend not-girlfriend Blair, the somewhat snobby kid As, and the military guy who is not the dino man Ax, and uh, the one who always walked around crocodile on his back, his name was Jim-”

“Stop! You're going way to fast! And how can one person have that many besties!”, Chazz suddenly called out, the last word spoken with a hint of disdain. Jesse, who was interrupted, blinked at him in silence before laughing. “Oh sorry. Let myself go there.” Zael laughed next to them. “Somehow familiar!”, he said but shut his mouth at Chazz's glare. “Can you describe Jaden?”, he asked, Jesse eyes showing a hint of pity at the question. “Well, he was an amazing guy. He was the best at yar academy and fought a show match against me when the exchange students first arrived…” Zael, head in his arms and knees, perked up a little at the sentence but didn't question it at all, choosing to stay silent.

Chazz felt a wave of shame washing over him. So much for Zael never finding out. Ignoring the yawning next to him, he continued to ask about Jaden, Jesse answering him with full enthusiasm. Jaden was the chocolate-brown and red from his visions. Even after hearing his name and pretty much every story about him Jesse remembered, Chazz still couldn't make the other's face out. It was the same with his other friends, no matter how much Jesse told him about them, they stayed blurry blobs in his memory. It was frustrating.

But sometimes, he was able to tell which blur was supposed to be who thanks to Jesse's stories.

“And then, Y'all became duel zombies! Ya were pretty pale anyway, I thought ya were actually dead the first time I laid eyes on ya!” 

Chazz rolled his eyes, at this point wondering if Jesse just made things up. Because according to him, their school was transported to another dimension and everyone turned into some kind of zombie asking for duels. But then again, they were in a pretty ridiculous situation right now anyway. So Chazz decided he would believe him until he would find proof that it hadn't, in fact, spiraled out this way.

“I think such an incident would've been in the news or something. Hey, Zael …” But once he threw a look at the famous singer, he canceled his question as it was clear that the younger boy had fallen asleep listening to Jesse's stories, his knees still drawn close to his chest, loosely embraced by his arms, his head laying on his legs, eyes closed and mouth smiling peacefully.

“That can't be comfortable”, Jesse commented, making Chazz shrug and float a bit farther away, signaling Jesse to follow him. He did so, with a knowing smile and waggling eyebrows. “Lettin’ the little one sleep, eh? Ya’re nicer than ya want to show.”

Chazz blushed slightly at the others words, shaking his head rapidly. “Shut up. I just wanted to tell you that we've been talking enough for today. Let's continue tomorrow. I need some time to think by myself. But tell me one last thing: do you remember how all of this stuff came to be?”

Jesse shook his head with a sorrowful look granted Chazz's wish at silence as he faded with a wave, leaving Chazz to wonder how he did that. And how and where a Duel Monsters Spirit would rest. He didn't even remember how he coped with this stuff before. And calling the teal haired spirit out again would maybe wake Zael. 

“Crap”, Chazz groaned, trying to ask Jesse out in a silent voice for the next few hours.

\---

“Tch. What a waste of time.” His silver hair reflecting the shiny moonlight, he threw the deck he had in his hand right now to his feet, where another person was, lying on the ground, unconscious. The cards scattered everywhere, a few being taken by the howling wind.

“What's wrong, Zac?”, a bodiless and boastful voice asked, making blue eyes narrow. “Don't call me that”, he corrected, then sighing. “This man doesn't have one of those cards. Those are all regular cards. I was misinformed.” 

“How unfortunate”, another voice sounded, calm and cold like the sea. “But there is a possibility that he lost it and we simply came too late.”

The silver-haired man groaned, raking his near shoulder-length hair back. “Yeah, that's a possibility. Tch, now we have to start looking again.”

“I'll do my best once we find him and have to duel him!”, a third and younger, a childish voice sounded, making the boastful voice laugh. “We don't even need you. All Zac needs is me.”

“He asked you not to call him that. And stop being like this”, the icy voice said, the other groaning. “Oh, whatever.” 

“I’ll do everything I'm capable of, so give me a chance!”, the childish voice called. The hunter sighed, slowly leaving the scene of the crime. “I know, I will. Stay put now, okay? We're going home. I'm tired.” And those were the final words, as both the hunter and the voices didn't speak up another time, leaving the man they had beaten in silence.

\---

“No, if ya put in Mirror Force, you'll be able to destroy every attacking monster of yar enemy! It'll really help ya out in a pinch!” Zael nodded enthusiastically, putting a copy in. “More tips? Please, Jesse!”

When Zael had awoken this morning, he felt sore all over. Groaning loudly and stumbling through his flat, he had made a worried Jesse and a cranky Chazz appear.

“What the hell’s your problem!”

“Is somethin’ wrong?”

“Nah. Just feeling all the pain from sleeping in that position yesterday night. But no rest for the wicked! I have to actually do stuff today. Cause I was kinda slacking yesterday, hanging with Chazz all day to find memories.”

Jesse had laughed at that while Chazz had only watched with a raised eyebrow, Zael slumping down in a chair on the table behind the couch. “Anyway, I have to optimize my deck for the upcoming competition! Now that I have two super mega awesome new ace cards, I have to think about combos and stuff!”

Spreading his cards on the table, he had started to go over them, occasionally humming to himself. He added and removed cards, scratching his head. Curious, both Jesse and Chazz had come closer too watch him.

Chazz couldn't say that he remembered everything about dueling. After watching Zael duel X, he did pick up some of the rules, but he'd like if he said he was as great as he was before the memory loss. At least he hoped that was the case. 

“Ohhh, goin’ for Rock Star Scouting so ya can power up Chazz? Great idea!” Zael had shot Jesse a grin at that, looking up from the fourteen cards in his hand. “Thanks, Jesse! I take you can remember how to play Duel Monsters?”

Jesse had nodded at that, smiling his warm smile. “Hey, of course, I do! I love Duel Monsters!” 

And then Zael had proceeded to ask Jesse about anything and everything on improving his deck, leaving Chazz a bit miffy and bored.

“Ya really don't need 3 copies of Rock Star Girl in yar deck. After all, she loses 500 Attack per other Rock Star Monster on the field, so if ya already have one, the others will be dead weight in yar hand. Plus ya have way to many level 5 and higher monsters anyway.”

“But I like this card!”, Zael whined, putting the cards out anyway. “Adding One Hit Wonder trap cards seems like a good idea. Or maybe one more of the field spell…”

Jesse didn't answer, instead looking like he was deep in thought, glancing over Zael's head. “Say Zael…” 

“Hmm?”

“When does yar tournament start? I'm just curious, ya know?”

“In about three days, tops? At least the preliminaries do. Why are you asking?”

Jesse looked away shyly. “Ya know, I've been thinkin’, I believed I was the only one that was stuck as a tradin’ card. But then I saw Chazz hangin’ out with you! So I thought, maybe there are other ones, too! Maybe Jay's out there! Or Jim!”

Chazz, who had been sulking in a corner while they were talking Duel Monsters, sprung up at that idea. “You mean there could be more people like us?”

Jesse nodded. “Yeah! And maybe they remember more than we do!” Both of them seemed happy at the thought. “And the best chance we have at findin’ them all is to duel everyone! At Zael's tournament!”

Zael, who also grew excited because of the two of them, cheered. “Well then, I just gotta stay in the tournament as long as possible to meet all of the Duelists!”

“Yeah!”, all of them cheered, going back to optimizing Zael's deck.

\---

“We finally finished it…” Jesse nodded at him with a grin, Chazz also smiling with a confident look on his face. “I feel like I can't lose with this deck! Thanks, Jesse! Oh, you too, of course, Chazz.”

Pulling his phone out, Zael tipped in some number, setting it to speaker and throwing it on the table while it connected. He threw himself on the couch, both of his feet on the small coffee table as Jesse came closer, curious. “Who are ya callin’?”

“Aerrow...you know, my best friend I mentioned before? He should be out of school now. Plus if Jayce is healthy again, he should be with him. As always. So I get two partners with whom I can train and try this new deck out! Genius!”

At that moment, somebody picked the call up, wind and loud talking in the background to be heard. “Anderson.”

“Yeah?”, Jesse answered, slightly blushing when Chazz laughed at him, his eyebrows raising. “Hey, it's me, Zael! Aerrow, I optimized my deck! Have time to try it out with me?”, Zael said with a booming and excited voice while Chazz explained to Jesse that Anderson was also Aerrow's name, making Jesse “ohhhh” with a slight facepalm.

At the other end, a sound could be heard that vaguely sound like someone's phone being taken away, a slightly angry “hey!” following. “Heeey, Zael, you back in town? You promised me to duel me again sometime!”, an excited voice called out, making Zael jump up.

“Jayce! The two of us just had the same thought! That's what I've been asking Aerrow about. I need people to train with me! You up?”

“Sure! Aerrow said he wanted to study stuff … but I'll get him to come along, don't worry!” 

“Yeah, see ya at the park dueling field! Tell Aerrow studying is boring!”

“Will do, see you!”

Zael ended the call, tossing his phone into a bag along with some snacks and duel disk. Hastily grabbing it he made a run for the door, putting his shoes on. “Come on, Chazz, Jesse! Let's go!”

“We'll automatically come long when ya remember to grab yar deck!”, Jesse said with a short laugh, making Zael blush slightly as he ran back into his apartment to retrieve his deck. 

\---

“Zael, over here!” Chazz watched as Zael joined his two friends, hugging the new companion while only shyly offering a high-five to Aerrow, latter rolling his eyes but doing it anyway.

“Hey Chazz”, Jesse said suddenly, his voice sounding surprisingly serious, making the raven-haired boy look up at him in alarm. Jesse looked right at Zael's unfamiliar friend, his eyes wide, his mouth opened in slight shock. 

He had short, dark red-brown hair, swaying slightly as he talked to Zael animatedly, his fiery-orange eyes shining. His orange turtleneck was mostly covered by a black jacket with orange collar, his earlobes pierced just like Zael's.

“What's wrong, Jesse?” Chazz asked after looking back and forth between the teal haired spirit and Zael's friend several times without Jesse finishing his sentence.

“Ah”, Jesse said, jumping the slightest bit. “It's just … don't ya think Zael's friend looks a lot like Jaden?” Chazz raised an eyebrow, shrugging at the same time. “I really don't know. You know, no memories and stuff.” The other laughed nervously. “Oh, yeah…”

“Why don't we go closer so you can get a better look?”, Chazz asked when Jesse only continued to stare, dragging the other to where Zael and his friends were. All of their heads snapped up at their arrival, stopping their conversation. 

“Ah, Chazz”, Aerrow said with an amused voice, turning to look at Jesse, eyes widening slightly. “Zael, did you pick another spirit up? Jeez. Okay, I'm Aerrow Anderson.” He points at the awestruck brunette next to him. “This idiot is Jayce Krüger. The only one who's able to be worse than Zael at school.” Jayce didn't even protest, he just nodded along, his eyes wide and mouth hanging open.

“Hi…”, he said, Aerrow chuckling behind him.

“I'm Jesse! And this grumpy fella”, he points at Chazz. “is called Chazz. Nice to meetcha!”

“And we found out about his last name!”, Zael piqued in. “It's Princeton!”

Aerrow laughed, waving them off. “Ah, don't worry about that. I was just in an incredibly bad mood that day. I apologize for that.”

“Yeah, forgive him. He has crazy mood swings!”, Jayce said with a laugh, Zael grinning and nodding behind him. Aerrow didn't find it to be funny, however, as he smacked Jayce somewhat more forceful than a friend should do right at the back of his head.

Ignoring the pained “ooowww!” in the background, Aerrow turned to look at Zael, an expression on his face that was half pure anger and half wry amusement. “Anyway, we came to duel right? Let's do it, I still have other things to do.” 

“Yeah, Let's Duel, Duel!”, Jayce shouted out at the same time as Zael's bewildered voice sounded “there are more important things than dueling to you?”, making Jesse grin and Chazz sigh with an amused undertone. “Y’all are a lively bunch, huh?”

\---

They decided that Jayce should go up against Zael first, as he “promised to duel me as soon as he comes back”, so both boys got ready, shuffling their cards and activating their duel disks, positioning themselves at opposite sides of the park dueling field. 

“Let's Duel!”

“I'll let you go first ‘cause you lost last time!”, Zael called making Jayce snarl angrily. “You say that every time! You just hate going first, don't you!”

“Uh, no, it's just that you never won against me.” Jayce blinked at that. “Wait, really?” 

“Never”, Aerrow said with a grin while he sat on the sidelines, joined by Chazz and Jesse. 

“Well, it's time to change that then! I draw!” Jayce grinned. “I can't wait to tell you to go first 'cause you lost last time! I summon Marvelous HERO Hulk in Attack Mode!”

Aerrow groaned and facepalmed, making Jesse look at him curiously. The blue haired boy noticed the gaze of spirit and explained. “If Hulk is in Attack Mode, he'll destroy himself in the End Phase. And because Jayce can't attack in the first turn, the 2100 Attack Points are completely useless. The better play would've been to set this monster, as it can't be destroyed in defense mode once per turn.”

Zael chuckled. “Aerrow is right, what were you thinking?” Jayce didn't answer, only staring at the 5 other cards in his hand with a grim expression. “I'll take that as a 'nothing at all’.”

“Shuddup!”, Jayce said, blushing madly. “I'll set two cards and end my turn!”

“Fine, but your Hulk will be destroyed due to his own effect.” The monster vanished from the field. “And now, the spotlight is on me! Draw!”

“I will activate the spell card Laying Off! This allows me to send three of my Rock Star Monsters from my deck or hand to the graveyard!” Jayce only watched with slight confusion. “And because it's so great, I can do it right again!”, Zael announced as he activated another Laying Off card. “From my deck, I'll send Rock Star Pianist, Drummer, Solo Artist, Veteran, Bassist and Groupie to the graveyard. And then, I'll summon Rock Star Flaming Guitarist!”

Zael's Monster, a bright red guitar with 1200 Attack points, showed itself, making Jayce take a step back and glance at his set cards, not unnoticed by Zael. “I activate his effect! I can tribute this card to special summon a Rock Star Monster from my hand. Come, Rock Star Girl!”

Again, Jayce glanced at his set cards, expression grim, but fire in his eyes. Zael's eyes narrowed. “And because I already have a Rock Star Card, I can summon Rock Star Accompanyist from my hand!”

Showing a slight smirk, Zael played the last card in his hand. “And now: my Spell, Rock Star Raigeki! By tributing one Rock Star Monster and also banishing one, but not the one I tributed, from my graveyard, I can destroy two cards on your field. And ‘cause you only have two set cards, I guess the decision is pretty easy. I tribute Rock Star Accompanyist and banish Rock Star Groupie!”

Jayce openly gasped at the destruction of his two cards, one of them being Mirror Force, the other one Dimensional Prison. “Aw, crap. I thought I'd be able to block your attack. Well, at least your Rock Star Girl doesn't have enough attack points to finish me off-”

“Wrong.”

Jayce's head snapped up at that. “Huh?”

Zael smirked, pointing at Jayce's empty field. “You should know, really. We played so often already. My Rock Star Girl gains 300 Attack points for every Rock Star in my graveyard. You want to count how many I have?”

Jayce eyes widened. “Because you activated Laying Off two times, you have at least six, but then you tributed both Accompanyist and Flaming Guitar, so that makes eight!”

“Actually, it's seven because I banished one of the six I got on my graveyard because of Laying Off. But yeah, you get the idea. My Rock Star Girl gains seven times 300 attack points. Which makes 2100.”

Jayce groaned. “And with her 2000 base attack, it makes…”

“4100”, Aerrow finished for him. “It's enough to wipe you out.”

“Oh yeah! Direct attack, Rock Star Girl! Screech his ears away!”

And as simple as that, Jayce's life points hit zero, the Duelist groaning as he let himself fall to the ground, rolling around in his anger.

On the sidelines, both Jesse and Chazz were watching with a wry smile and a facepalm respectively, Aerrow outright laughing. 

“He didn't even need us.”

“How disappointing.”

“Just what I expected from a Slifer Red! Doesn't even know the effects of his own monsters!”, Aerrow was in tears by now, making Jayce blush red. “Shuddup! Shuddup, Aerrow! You and your stupid Obelisk Ass can bury yourself for all I care! I hate you!”

It only made the other laugh harder.

“Come on, again, Zael, please!”

But before Zael could answer, Aerrow rose from his place, smirking at Jayce. “How about you duel me instead? I promise I'll take everything I said just now back of you defeat me!”

Jayce's eyes narrowed. “Bring it on.”

Helplessly showed off the field, Zael sat down where Aerrow just sat with Jesse and Chazz, sighing when they both readied their decks. Jesse, sensing Zael's dissatisfaction, smiled warmly at him. “Ya will get yar chance to try out yar new deck, don't worry.”

“I sure hope so! 'cause I didn't even get to show you guys off!”, Zael huffed angrily, making Jesse laugh slightly. “Come on, let's watch yar friends. Ya might be able to learn somethin’ from them!”

Zael slightly shook his head at that, laughing. “Nah, don't think so. Learning from Jayce is pretty much impossible. And Aerrow … well, let's just say he has his own way to duel.”

Both Chazz and Jesse looked curious at that, but Zael only waved them off. “You'll understand once you see it.” Exchanging looks, they focused on the Duel, but sadly, they noticed that it still hasn't started. In fact, Aerrow and Jayce were arguing about who should go first. 

“Because you keep losing, you should start!”

“But I always lose when I start! You start!”

“JUST TOSS A COIN!”, Jesse, Chazz, and Zael shouted in unison.

The coin toss decided that Jayce should go first, much to his dismay. 

“Okay, I'll start. Again. I'll draw.” Looking at his cards with a smile, Jayce picked one and slapped it one the duel disk with a little more force than necessary. “I'll summon Marvelous HERO Spider Man in attack mode! Then I'll set three cards. Your move.”

Aerrow smirked, making Jayce blush slightly. “That's all? Hardly better than the things you did against Zael. My turn, draw!”

“I will summon Korrina, Unfortunate Lancer in attack mode! I can normal summon her without tributes when my opponent has a monster on his field while I do not.”

Jayce groaned. “Great. Only happened because I had to go first again.”

Aerrow tched at that. “Now, don't be a sissy. When I normal or special summon Korrina, I have to throw a dice for every level she has, meaning 6. For every number of spots I throw, Korrina’ll get 100 base attack points. Let's …” Aerrow smirked as the dice materialized on the field. “... Throw some dice!”

“He's relying on luck?”, Chazz asked somewhat bewildered, staring as the six dice fell. “Well, yes. One could say that. But with Aerrow…”

All six dices stopped at six. 

“... It feels less like luck and more like skill. He always gets what he wants. That's why the students of the academy usually just call him 'that one lucky bastard’.”

Both Jesse and Chazz watched as the attack points of Korrina, the Unfortunate Lancer, were raised to 3600. 

“But just because he somewhat relies on luck, it doesn't mean he doesn't have strategies. He combines it. And that makes him so good. Believe it or not, his whole deck consists of monsters like Korrina, Unfortunate Lancer. And yet, he is the elite of the academy, an Obelisk Blue. And everyone knows him.”

Jesse was impressed. Chazz didn't want to show it if he was. “Phew, I can't believe there's a duelist like this here! Crazy! Right, Chazz?” Chazz pretended to be focused on the Duel. “Nah. I bet I was better.”

“Yeah! Cause Chazz is the best!” Jesse only smiled wryly at that, not commenting, to Chazz's relief.

“I will destroy your Spider Man with my Korrina! Attack!”

Jayce eyes narrowed. “Now's the time! I will activate my trap!” Zael could've sworn he saw Aerrow's breath hitch.

“Astral Barrier!”

Both Zael and Jesse chuckled at that, Aerrow groaned, breathing instead of holding his breath. “It makes me able to change an attack targeting my monsters into a direct attack.”

“Fine, I'll attack you directly!” Using both his index and middle finger, Aerrow pointed directly at Jayce. “Eat this! Devastating Pierce!”

“Owwww!” As the monster attacked, it somehow pushed Jayce off his feet, making him clutch his side as he tried to stand up, heaving. “Jeez! Control your powers, Jayce! You okay?”, Zael called, making Jayce nod.

“I'm fine! Don't worry, happens all the time.”

Jayce was left at a measly 400 life points while Aerrow was still at 4000. “I set a card. Your move.”

“Still haven't lost! My turn, I will draw! First, I will summon my Marvelous HERO Vision in attack mode! Then, I will activate my trap, HERO Recharge! For every open HERO monster on my field, I will gain 1000 life points. And because I have 2, I will gain 2000 life points.”

Aerrow smirked. “Predictable as always. Trap, activate! Karma's Retribution! When a player gains life points, I choose two cards on the field. You'll do the same! And then, I will roll a dice. If I roll an even number, the cards I chose will be destroyed. If I roll an odd number, the cards you chose will be destroyed.”

“There's only one card on your field…”, Jayce said with slight confusion, making Aerrow laugh. “Well, yes. You’ll have to choose one of your own cards. Deal with it! Anyway, I'll choose your two set cards.”

Jayce pointed at Aerrow's Monster and one of his own with a grim expression. 

“Alright, here we go!” Zael clicked his tongue as the dice was rolled. “Man, that's dirty.” Noticing his spirits’ questioning gaze, he explained. “If Korrina, Unfortunate Lancer, is destroyed by a card effect, Aerrow is able to summon any Unfortunate Monster from his deck. Which means he'll go for an even stronger monster. No matter what the result is, he'll profit.”

And just as Zael finished explaining, the dice stopped rolling at an odd number. Aerrow smirked. “Wow, you won a dice battle against me! Now your Marvelous HERO Vision and my Korinna will be destroyed.” Jayce eyes widened. “Wait, I didn't expect to actually win! Uh, I activate a quick spell from my hand, My Body as a Shield! By paying 1500 life points, I can negate the effect of a trap, spell or monster card that would destroy any monster on the field!”

“And as quickly as that, you've almost lost all the life points you gained thanks to your Recharge Trap. Kinda sad.”

“Shut up! I end my turn.”

“Well, well. Draw!” 

Aerrow barely even looked at his cards before continuing to talk. “You know that because you lost the life points you gained, my Lancer is able to defeat you by attacking your HERO Vision, as he only possesses 1100 attack points! So I think I'll do just that!”

“I activate my trap!” Aerrow eyes widened. “Steadfast Stand! My monster will avoid destruction because of it!”

“What! That's all? Jayce, you'll still take the damage! You'll still lose!”, Aerrow screeched out, Zael groaning at the same time. “Oh, that's so Jayce, alright.”

As Jayce's life points hit 0, he frowned and looked down to the ground, choosing not to face Aerrow. “Why did you even activate the trap? It didn't make a difference!”

“Yes, it did!”, Jayce shouted, enraged. “This way, Vision was not destroyed!”

“But you still lost …”, Aerrow tried to argue, but a hand on his shoulder stopped him. “Come on, Aerrow. Let him be. Why don't we duel next? I actually wanna try my deck out. Can't do that when I win against Jayce too quickly.”

“H-hey!” 

“It's true though. We both didn’t even summon more than one monster against you.”

Jayce decided that the ground was really interesting.

\---

In the end, Zael was are to bring out both Jesse and Chazz several times against Aerrow, playing the combos they thought about, winning some, losing some. Jayce didn't play any duels for the rest of the day, instead chatting on the sidelines with Jesse and Chazz when they were available, with a slight sulk.

When they parted ways, it was nearly dark again, Aerrow and Zael in good spirits, promising to train together again before the preliminaries. The Obelisk student left first with a wave, muttering something about not being able to get anything done today, leaving Zael with Jayce.

“Chazz and Jesse are the coolest! I wish I had an ace monster like that … plus Jesse helped you with your deck, too!”, he complained, pouting slightly. Zael laughed at that. “Well good luck finding one, then. 'cause I picked Chazz off a dark back alley.”

Jayce eyes shone at that. “You mean if I look enough, I might find someone like Chazz or Jesse? Neat! I'll start looking right now!” And with those words, he dashed away, making Zael reach after him with his hand uselessly.

“Wait, Jayce, it's already late...oh, who am I kidding he can't hear me anymore.” Sighing, Zael turned around to walk home himself, his two spirits trailing not too far behind him.

“Man, I love both of them, but I hate hanging with both of them at the same time. They have that weird sexual tension thing they can't solve, so Jayce is always distracted and Aerrow bullies him whenever he gets the chance. It's frustrating! Hopefully, they solve it soon so that we can focus on dueling! Especially with the tournament coming up!”, Zael complained, Jesse and Chazz exchanging looks at that comment.

“Are they…”, Jesse started the unspoken question, but Zael only groaned. “Like I care! You know, they used to kiss each other all the time. But when I asked them about it, they told me they were just friends! Friends who occasionally kiss each other! Like what! So I told them 'guys, friends who occasionally kiss each other aren't a thing’ and their reaction was 'well fine, we’ll focus on the friend part and forget about the kiss part’. So now they don't kiss each other anymore but the tension is still there! Just … admit that you like each other! Seriously!”

Laughing, the spirits listened to Zael's rambling as they went their way back to the blue-haired boy's apartment.

\---

“Thanks. You're amazing. With your help, my revenge on the Astria family will surely be successful.”

“Flattering me, Lucas? You should know better than that.”

“Haha. I guess I should. My bad … Akiza.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guess who the spirits of the hunter are! I think it's obvious, but I might be wrong.
> 
> So remember when I said I haven't watched Arc V yet? I'm nearly done with it now. Yeah, have been watching it instead of continuing this. Sorry. The good news is that I might be able to add the characters now.


	3. Focus! The Start of the Preliminaries!

Sighing, Jayce looked behind a container, frowning when he found nothing again. “Zael was totally lying. I checked every damn back alley in town but I still didn't find anything. Oh! Maybe I should go out of town!” 

Nodding at himself, he left the alley again, checking his watch for the time. “Hm, it's already late. Maybe I should continue to search tomorrow …” Nuzzling his nose into the collar of his jacket, he started to walk towards his home slowly, tuning the late evening conversations of the people out. 

“Why do you need a spirit like that anyway? You have us!”, a voice whispered to him, making Jayce shake his head. “It's not like I'm trying to replace you guys. It's just …” Jayce looked like he was contemplating what to say for a moment. “It's just, well, Zael, Chazz and Jesse looked like they had a whole bunch of fun doing stuff together. You know you can't tell me stories of your life as a duelist, help me with my deck and sometimes give me tips during duels, Iron Man. It's like finding a new friend! So forgive me if I am self-centered, but I'd really like to experience it, do you understand?”

Iron Man sighed. “I guess I do but … I can't help but feel like it's unnecessary! You have all of us behind you and me as your ace card.”

“Iron Man, stop being jealous. Whatever Jayce does we should stand behind him, as you said. Even if he wants to find some special card no one has ever heard about”, another spirit interrupted, making Iron Man glare behind his mask.

“You always have to have the last word, huh? Keep out of my business, Doctor Strange!”, the spirit snarled at the other, he just rolling his eyes. 

“It's our business. Also, talking about last … Jayce, you are aware that tomorrow is the day of the preliminaries?”

Jayce eyes widened in shock, scrambling to check his watch. “Oh God! You're right! I can't believe I forgot! I spend so much time trying to find a card that I didn't prepare anything for the Duel World Tournament at all! I'm so stupid!”

“Well, it's still not to late! If you go home right now, you can still prepare!”, another voice added. Jayce nodded. “You're right, Spider Man. I'll go home right now!”

With those words, he started rushing home, dodging other people in his path. 

“Jayce, watch out for root there!”, Doctor Strange warned, but it came too late, as Jayce had already tripped and planted face-down into the ground, groaning in pain as he tried to get up again. 

“You okay?”, asked Spider Man with a worried voice, Jayce only nodding. “I’m fine. Nothing hurts too bad.” Trying to get up, however, he felt something odd on his left hand, something that didn't quite feel like the ground. He looked there curiously, spotting a face-down trading card in-between his hand and the ground.

“Is this …”, he asked with wide eyes, picking it up as he got up.

\---

“Welcome, fellow Duelists, to the Duel World Tournament!” Every screen in the city showed the same. A silver-haired woman with ice cold, blue eyes appealing to duelists all over the city with a businesslike smile.

“I, Riko Astria, your host, am happy to announce the start of the preliminaries! The rules are easy: Every player starts with a total of 500 points. Accumulate them by betting them in duels with fellow participants. Just remember that you will lose points in case of a defeat. With 0 points, you'll be out if the tournament! And after a week, the 16 participants with the highest score will qualify for the main tournament!”

Folding her arms, she continued speaking. “Remember to get the Duel World Tournament App on your phone and connect it with your duel disk. Without doing that, you'll be unable to collect points, check them or see your ranking. So now that the rules are clear, come on, let's say it together! It's … “

“Time …!”, the crowd cheered.

“To …!” Dark green eyes narrowed.

“...Duel!”

\---

“Come on, Jayce, let's duel!”, Zael said with a grin, but the other shook his head uncomfortably. “I'd rather not …”

“Aw, come on, were such good buds! It doesn't matter who wins, right, cause we can be happy for the other! Riiiiight?”

Jayce frowned, shaking his head again. “You think I'm easy.”

Zael shrugged. “Well, sorry. But you gotta duel man! Or you'll fly anyway. Then you might as well help a homie out and give him some points, you know?”

“You have a point.” Jayce smiled. “If I want to make it, I have to duel!” Zael nodded along. “Yes, yes, that's why you gotta challenge…”

“...Me!”, Aerrow finished for Zael, the same mischievous grin on his face. Jayce sighed. “You both think I'm easy.”

The brunette's eyes flashed dangerously as his weak smile turned into an aggressive grin, looking between his two blue-haired friends. “I just gotta prove you wrong! So I challenge …”

Zael and Aerrow both looked at him in anticipation. “ … Aerrow! I'm still mad because of what you said a few days ago.”

Zael groaned while the other cheered. “How many points do we bet, Jayce? I'm all in for 500!” Giving Aerrow a glare, he nodded. “You wanna go? I'm so ready-” 

“Wait! You can't kick each other out! You're like best friends! Bet 400 or something!”, Zael screeched in protest, mellowing his friends down. After a stare down that lasted maybe a minute, Aerrow coughed lowly. “Alright, fine. Let's bet 400.”

“It's time to duel!”, they called after making the preparations, deciding with a coin toss that Jayce should start. 

“My move! I'll draw!” Chazz appeared next to Zael, looking over where Aerrow and Jayce were dueling, then looking back at Zael with a raised eyebrow. “You don't wanna duel or what?”

Pouting slightly, Zael answered: “Well yes, I wanted to duel. I wanted to duel Jayce. But he chose Aerrow as his opponent. I feel very neglected.”

“Why not go look for another opponent while they duel?” Zael seemed to think for a second about that possibility. “Hm, you're right! Hey! Hey, you over there!”

A boy about Zael's age looked at him, coming over as Zael waved him closer. “You play the tournament, right? Let's duel!”

“Y-yes okay! Say you're Blackbird, right! I'm a big fan!”, the young boy stuttered out, making Zael smile radiantly. “Oh, how nice! It's always great to meet a fan. Tell you what, if you win, I'll do you one favor, okay? So do your best!”

“Y-yes!”, the boy squeaked, betting 100 points, Zael doing the same.

Next to him, Jayce had already finished his turn with two set cards and a set monster, Aerrow drawing his own card. “I summon Korrina, Unfortunate Lancer in attack mode!”

“Again, only because I had to start! You only win because I start! You actually totally suck!”

“Shut up, you're just mad because I'm better! Anyway, let me roll my dice.” Again, the dice all stopped at 6. “Then, I activate a spell from my hand! Go, Tribute to the Doomed! By discarding a card from my hand, I can destroy a monster on the field. I choose your set monster and discard Camellia, Unfortunate Ninja!”

Jayce gasped as his Marvelous HERO Hulk was revealed and destroyed, leaving him with three set cards.

“Oh, I see you learned from our last encounter. Too bad I'm always three steps ahead. Now you don't have a monster to protect yourself. Next up, I activate my spell, Graceful Dice! My Lancer will gain 100 attack points times the number and I will roll.”

The number on the dice showed 6. Aerrow smiled. “My Lancer has 4200 attack points. And because you have no monster, you better do something or you'll be wiped out! Direct attack!”

“I activate my trap! Negate Attack!”

Aerrow tched at that, rolling his eyes. “You only delay the inevitable”, he called with a sneer but Jayce shook his head. “It's not over until the last card has been drawn! Of course, it's a hard lesson for you Obelisk people, but I'll try my best to show you what I mean! And I'll start by activating the trap Avenger Signal! If you destroyed a Marvelous HERO monster this turn, I can summon one level four or lower from my deck or hand in my End Phase. And I'll choose Marvelous HERO Ant Man!”

“Have it your way. It's not like your 800 attack points monster could do a thing. I set two cards and end my turn.” 

Gritting his teeth, Jayce drew a card. “I'll make you shut up! Draw!” Seemingly smirking at the air next to him, he nodded, making Aerrow raise an eyebrow.

“I activate the spell card Heavy Storm! It destroys every spell and trap card on the field.” 

Both of Aerrow's set cards left the field, just like Jayce's did, leaving only their monster on the field. “Now I'll play my continuous spell, HERO Soul! Once per turn, if I have a HERO monster in my graveyard, I can remove it from play to special summon a HERO soul token with 0 attack and defense points. I remove Hulk from play and summon a token! And for every Token, my HERO monster gain 300 attack points!”

Ant Man's attack points rose to 1200. “Sadly, neither Ant Man not the Token will stay for long. I tribute them!”

Aerrow narrowed his eyes. “Going to summon the indestructible Iron Man to defend yourself? I'll let you know, I will most definitely draw a card to turn things around on you-”

Jayce shook his head in an almost childlike glee, his eyes sparkling. “Screw you, don't listen to him, Iron Man! Say hello!"

Jayce's Monster appeared, almost glaring at Aerrow. 

"Now I activate my spell, Imitating HERO! With this card, I can summon a HERO from my deck in attack position, the same attack, defense, attribute, type and level from one of the monsters I already own. I choose Iron Man and summon another Iron Man from my deck. He cannot attack however and will be destroyed at the end phase of this turn."

Aerrow snarled. "And what good does it do then?" Jayce smirked, grin widening every second. "Didn't you pay attention in your Obelisk Blue classroom? Well I can hardly blame you. Look, Aerrow! I have two level eight monsters!"

Aerrow blanches, looking at the two Iron Mans. "Don't tell me... Ever since when did you have an XYZ monster? And how do you even know how to summon them?"

His friend throws him a look. "Shut up! I overlay my two level eight Iron Mans and build the overlay network!" He points a finger at the sky. "As XYZ summon I summon my newest addition to the team! Say hello to Vector, the Emperor of Honesty!"

“He's one of us!”, Jesse whispered to Zael, latter’s attention shifting to the duel between Jayce and Aerrow as Chazz took the random kid’s last life points, his eyes widening. “He is? Do you remember him or something?”

Jesse shook his head, a confused look on his face. “I don't do at all, actually. I can just feel it, ya know? He's also a Duelists trapped in a card now.”

Chazz joined in on their conversation, the kid trying to get Zael's attention completely forgotten. “Really? You think he remembers anything?”

“We can ask him later”, Zael decided, taking a closer look at Jayce's new monster. He had spiky orange hair that seemed like it wanted to high-five the sky, lively purple eyes, and a goofy smile that reminded the blue-haired boy of his partner Jayce, his outfit consisting of brown boots, red pants, and top, decorated with golden stone.

He looked sympathetic enough, Zael decided.

“It has more attack points than Korrina!”, Aerrow just screeched out, as Jayce's new partner had attack points in the height of 4000, overpowering his monster's 3600.

“And that's why I'll attack! Get 'em, Ray!”

“Roger!”

His voice was really high-pitched and goofy, Zael decided.

The new spirit, presumably named Ray, launched an attack at Aerrow's monster, making him lose 400 life points. “I detach an XYZ material to activate Vector's effect. Then, I'll end my turn. At my End Phase, Vector, the Emperor of Honesty, will destroy himself. But don't worry! As long as he has XYZ Material, I can summon him back my next Standby Phase with the same Material attached! See you later, Ray!”

Jayce waved the spirit, who waved back with a goofy grin before he disappeared from the field.

“Tch, whatever. I'm still alive and kicking! With Vector's destruction, your field is completely empty, giving me a chance to counter-attack. My next draw will bring you down!”, Aerrow called with a smirk, but it quickly vanished when Jayce smirked right back at him. 

“Yeah … about that ... when Vector inflicts battle damage, I can detach an XYZ material to skip my opponent’s next draw phase. You don't get to draw a card and use your dumb luck! Sucks to be you!”

Aerrow's eyes widened. “I don't get to draw? But I don't have anything on my hand …” 

“Or on your field”, Jayce added helpfully, making Aerrow grit his teeth. “Your Emperor has 4000 attack points. Because I have nothing in my hand or in my field, I can't do anything in my turn! Which means …”

“We win!”, Jayce cheered. 

He is stupidly strong, Zael decided.

“Oh fine. A smart man knows when to give up. I surrender”, Aerrow said with a pout, his hand hovering his deck on his duel disk. The moment those words were uttered, Jayce flashed his most radiant grin at Zael, the latter showing him a proud thumbs up. 

“Did we do it?”, the squeaky voice from before asked, making the three boys look up at the source of it, spotting the newest addition to Jayce's team hovering over them.

“Yes!”, Jayce beamed, “And it was you who made it possible!” Taking out two of his other cards, he smiled fondly. “And of course because of you, Ant Man, Hulk! I'm sorry you had to visit the graveyard and be removed from play…”

Fondly smiling at his friend, Zael clapped his shoulder a few times, eyes searching the others. “Wanna introduce us to your new friend, Jayce?” and Jayce beamed at him with such radiance, Zael could've sworn he had gone blind.

“This is Ray Shadows. And Ray, this is my best friend Zael and that's Aerrow. Behind Zael are his spirits, the teal haired one is Jesse, the grumpy one Chazz.”

The spirit nodded enthusiastically. “Nice to meet you!” The answers he got were either on the same level of enthusiasm or way less.

“And you're a spirit just like Chazz and Jesse?” Zael asked, making Ray tilt his head. “What does a spirit like Chazz and Jesse mean?”

“Well”, Zael started, scratching his chin. “You see, both of them used to be Duelists themselves rather than Duel monster spirits. And they both haven't got a clue how it happened.”

Ray looked deep in thought. “Former Duelists? Hmm, I don't remember dueling at all. But my friend did. At least, I think so…”

“What do ya remember?”, Jesse asked, but Ray only looked at him with a troubled expression.

“Pretty much nothing...I only remember one thing. My friend Yuma!” His face instantly lit up as he mentioned his friend. “We were always hanging out and Yuma was an awesome Duelists! And he never gave up and protected his friends whenever he could! He was always so cool!”

“You don't remember anythin’ but this Yuma person?”

“No, nothing at all, sorry. Not another person, nothing about where I'm from or something. I only remember being his friend. Sorry I can't help you…”

“Oh...it's fine.” 

“He knows more about this Yuma than he knows about himself”, Chazz whispered to Jesse with a slight sneer, making the other chuckle lightly.

“He still remembers more than ya did, Chazzie!” 

“Don't call me that. And shut up.”

All of them laughed at that, Aerrow somehow managing to pout at the same time.

“Why don't we let those three chat”, Zael said to his friends, thumb pointing at the three spirits happily or in Chazz's case grumpily chatting about their past lives and memories. “While we take a small break to eat?”

\---

“I can't believe Jayce is so highly ranked.”

“He has 900 points right now. And those were kind of your points.”

Aerrow rolled his eyes. “Tch, I know that! Anyway, I can't hang with you chumps anymore. I have to try hard to make it into the final round now. So I'm gonna go ahead and separate from you to collect points. See you guys at the final tournament.” With these words, he rose from the table he shared with his two friends, saying goodbye and waving them as he left, Zael and Jayce watching his disappearing back.

“Things are going to be rough for him now if he wants to make it.”

Jayce chuckled at that. “His own fault, he underestimated me!”

“True. But this is no time to rest. We should go and duel some!”, Zael called, stretching his arms as he stood up.

Jayce nodded. “Yeah, let's! Hey, think we could play some tag duels or something? You up?”

Zael laughed at the suggestion, both of them leaving the small restaurant they were in. “Sure, I'm up! What about you guys?”

“Do what you want”, Chazz said, Jesse throwing an arm around his companion, laughing. “He means he'd love to.”

“Me too!” Ray cheered, smiling happily.

“Great, then let's go-”

Before he could finish the sentence, a loud explosion and shrill screaming interrupted him, his head whipping to the sound of the noise. Dark grey smoke rose from there, making Zael's eyes widen. 

“Shit, what happened there...?”, he whispered, Jayce shaking his head. “No clue…”

“Let's check it out!”

With those words, both of them dashed to where the grey smoke rose, encountering a people trying to get away, a fearful expression on their face.

“There!”, Jayce called, all of them looking ahead to see a person dressed in a long black coat and wild brown hair, standing in front of a person who was on the ground, sliding backward with a terrified expression on his face.

“Please...stop! I give up, please, just stop…”

“Hmph. Surrendering as I want to charge my last attack? Come on, don't be such a killjoy! Attack, Black Rose Dragon Queen!”

Behind the still standing Duelist, a monster with the upper body of a beautiful human woman and a draconic lower body, screeched out as it flapped his wings of black rose petals, readying a blast at their human hands.

Screaming in terror, the man scurried back more, his horrified eyes locked on the creature of the enemy.

“Stop!”

The monster and the two humans stopped in their tracks as Jayce and Zael approached, the spirits trailing behind them.

The man saw his chance and hurriedly stood up and made a run for it, ending the duel.

“Tch! Thanks to you he got away!” Green eyes narrowed as he stared down at the two newcomers, his monster behind him roaring in anger, and smashing nearby buildings with their prickly vines.

“This power!”, Jayce gasped, Zael's eyes narrowing. “Why are you doing this?”

The other sneered. “I can do whatever I want. Especially because this is an Astria organized tournament. I deserve to cause a havoc at their tournaments after all they did to me and my family.”

“No…”, Zael whispered, horrified. “Those people here are completely innocent! Dragging them into your family feud just because they participate in this tournament is wrong, Lucas!”

What was a cold smirk just a second ago turned into an angry frown, the boy in front of them clicking his tongue.

“I didn't expect you to understand, Zael. With you, there has always been only sunshine and rainbows, hasn't there?”, he said, looking down onto the two other boys as he was a little bigger.

“You know that's not true! Lucas, you know that!”

The other didn't respond, instead just glaring at the ground before snarling. “I know for a fact that I'm stronger than you because of the things I had to endure. Stronger than you, because all you did in the last few years is to make yourself a fool on stage.”

“Lucas…”

Curiously, Jayce glanced between the two other boys, when his questioning gaze reached Jesse and Chazz, both of them shrugged.

“Listen Zael, I'm stronger. Stronger than anyone right now! And I'll prove it. Duel me right now!”

Zael frowned at that. “Fine, let's duel. But Lucas, you-”

“You need to stop venting your anger and frustration through dueling? It's not what dueling is about?”, Lucas interrupted. “Hmph, you don't get to tell me what to do. I do whatever I want! It makes feel better when I vent anger like this! Who cares about what dueling is really for!”

“Let's duel, Lucas. I'll prove to you that your dueling is wrong!”

Jesse chose that moment to appear next to Zael, looking slightly worried. “Zael…”

“Him too?” Jesse nodded. “The card from before, the Dragon Queen one, it's that one.”

Chazz appeared at Zael's other side. “Does it matter? We'll show him who's the boss!”

Jesse chuckled. “That's right, The Chazz. Let's show’em.” His gaze turned to Zael. “And I agree with ya. His way of duelin’ is wrong. We should show him some true duelin’!”

Zael nodded. “You ready, Lucas?”

“I was born ready”, was the answer.

“Duel!”

“I will start, Zael. I hope you don't mind. Not that I'd care, actually. I draw!”

With a smirk, he set two cards. “I set two cards. Then, I'll summon Warrior Lady of the Rose in Attack Mode. I'll end my turn.”

“It's my turn, I draw!” Silently contemplating, his gaze shifted to Jesse, who nodded back with a serious expression. “I summon Radiant Rock Star! Then I set two cards. Back to you, Lucas.”

Lucas sneered. “That's all? I expected more from you. Aren't you Blackbird, the new Star on the Dueling Idol Stage? Oh wait, no, you're just good ol’ Zael. Well then, your good friend Lucas will show you how a real turn looks like! Draw!”

“That confirms that they knew each other before this right?”, Jayce asked, but Ray was only able to look back at him with a troubled expression. “I can't really tell, Jayce. Sorry…”

“No, it's fine. You don't know any of these people after all. You don't need to apologize…” Jayce's eyes narrowed as he looked at the two dueling boys. “Although I was certain I knew everything about Zael, I'm not quite so sure now…”

They focused on the Duel as Lucas opened his turn with a trap card. “I activate my trap! Rose Petal Storm! As long as this card is in the game, every time I change a battle position of a plant monster with a card effect, you take 300 damage. And then, I'll chain my continuous trap Ivy Shackles! With this, all of your monsters will also be plant type during my turn.”

“That's great”, Zael called. “But right now, those things don't do a thing for you!”

Clicking his tongue, his opponent rolled his eyes. “I was getting to that. Anyway, I summon Sorceress of the Rose in Attack Mode!”

“It doesn't have more attack points than my Rockstar has...are you planning on destroying both your Warrior Lady and my Radiant Rock Star with an attack?”

“Tch, I have something way better planned. Watch! Field Spell, Breathtaking Rose Garden!”

Lucas smirked as his field spell materialized in front of him the ones watching, while Zael gasped at the new scenery.

“Isn't this supposed to be a hologram?”, Chazz whispered next to Zael. “It looks so real!”

“He's psychic!”, Jayce suddenly called, a few rose petals squashed in his hand. “He makes the holograms real! Zael, watch out, he can make pain real, too!”

Zael frowned at Jayce's exclamation, Chazz's eyes widening as he tried to comprehend the information. “Real pain?”, Jesse asked from the field, similar expression to Chazz. “Ya mean like in a Shadow Duel?”

“Not quite sure what a Shadow Duel is”, Zael said through gritted teeth. “ But psychic Duelists can make the holograms real. But if they do or do not, that's up to them.”

With a cold smile, Lucas laughed, covering his mouth with a hand. “That's right. And I will obviously choose to make pain towards Zael real. Because I'm just that kind of person.”

“That's unfair!”, Chazz called with an angry glint in his eyes. Lucas laughed at him. “The world is unfair, rich kid! I had to learn the hard way!”, he snarled, making Chazz frown.

“How do ya know… 'bout Chazz bein’ rich?”, Jesse asked with a slightly confused face. “Or how did ya know he...was rich in human form, rather?”

“Don’t be dumb. I was able to spot both of you and carrot head over there immediately. You're like Akiza. That's the name of my spirit.” Lucas frowned at them. “You're not from this world. Or rather, you don't belong here. Akiza and I are working on a way to get her back where she belongs. In turn, she'll help me to take revenge on the Astria family. That's our deal.”

Zael's eyes widened. “A way to get them back to where they came from?”

“That would be great!”, Chazz said, but Lucas shook his head. 

“This deal is only for Akiza. Don't think I'll be helping you chumps.”

Again with a cold, fake smile, he shrugged. “Just because I used to be friends with Zael, it doesn't mean I have to help his friends.”

“Used to be…?”, Zael asked with a slight tremor in his voice. “What happened, Lucas?”

“None of your business. You didn't care when it went down. So I have no reason to tell you now”, he said, eyes on the ground, the corners of his mouth turned down.

“Lucas, I-”

“Shut up! It doesn't matter anymore!” There was so much rage and resentment in his voice, making Zael stagger back with a shocked expression on his face.

“I activate Sorceress of the Rose's effect! When I activate a spell card while this open card is on the field, I can change a monster’s battle position. I choose Warrior Lady of the Rose!”

“Your own Monster?”

“Yes, because I can activate its effect! When I change Warrior Lady of the Rose's battle position, she gains 500 attack points. And you lose 300 Life points because of Rose Petal Storm! And then, from my hand, I'll chain Princess of the Rose’s effect. When a monster changes its battle position from attack to defense I can special summon her to my side. Rise!”

After the monster appeared on the field, the open trap card on the field glowed, making a purple tornado with red rose petals appear, heading straight for Zael.

“Watch out!”

Trying to guard his face with his arms, Zael raised his hands, the wind cutting his skin and some of his clothes. “I didn't want a new look yet, no thank you!”, Zael said dryly, Lucas sneering at him.

“You're laughing now, but you'll notice the pain soon enough. I activate my field spells effect! Once per turn, when a monster changes its battle position, all of the Rose monsters gain 300 attack.”

Lucas's Warrior Lady's attack rose to 2700, Sorceress's to 1800 and Princess’s to 2300.

“That's…a lot of strong monsters”, Chazz said with widened eyes, Zael next to him gritting his teeth. “But even with that massive 2700 attack points, his monster is still in defense mode, right? It can't attack.”

But Zael shook his head. “There's still Princess of the Rose's effect.”

“I activate Princess of the Rose's effect! By discarding a card in my hand, I can change a monster’s battle position. I choose Warrior Lady of the Rose! Now you'll take 300 damage again and the attack points of my monster will rise up to 3200!”

Chazz tched. “I hate to say this but you were right. I spoke too soon.” His gaze shifted to Jesse. “Don't tell him, but I feel kind of bad for him.”

“He's not the only one you should feel bad for. If his attack goes through, I'm done for!”, Zael groaned.

“Battle!”, Lucas called. “I attack your Radiant Rock Star with my Warrior Lady!”

“I activate my continuous trap! Security Guards! By discarding my entire hand, one of my monsters cannot be chosen as an attack target as long as this card is on the field and the number of discarded cards is higher than the number of your monster. I discarded 3 cards, so you can't choose my Radiant Rock Star as an attack target!”

Lucas laughed. “Great move, Zael. It'll save you for this turn. I end my turn.”

“It's my turn! Draw!” Looking at Chazz, Zael smiled. “I'm counting on you!”

“Wait, what? What am I supposed to do-”

“From my hand, I activate Tomorrow's Rock Star's effect! I banish him from play so that in my next Standby Phase, I can summon him to my field. Then, I'll end my turn.”

“Hmph. With the end of your turn, the attack points of my Warrior Lady will go down again. But that won't save you.”

The attack points lowered to 2200.

“I draw. In my Standby Phase, the effect of my Breathtaking Rose Garden activates. By changing one of my monster’s battle position, I can take one of the of the Rose monster in my graveyard back to my hand. I change the battle position of my Sorceress to defense. You lose 300 life points again. And my monsters gain 300 attack points!”

Zael's life points dropped to 3100, the attack points of Lucas's monster raising to 2500, 2600 and 2100 respectively.

“Then, I activate Sorceress’s effect! When her battle position is changed, I can destroy one spell or trap card. And I choose your Security Guards trap!”

As the trap that protected him was destroyed, Jesse shot Zael a look that clearly said I-hope-ya-have-an-idea-to-get me-outta-this, but Zael only grinned back wryly, clearly telling I-have-but-you-won't-like-it.

“And now I activate my Princess's effect! By discarding this card”, he waved the card he got back from his field spell around. “I can change the battle position of a monster. I choose my Sorceress. She'll switch back to attack position, activating her and the effect of Rose Petal Storm. I destroy your set card and you lose 300 life points.”

“What a great time to activate my trap then! Surpassing the Stage Star! If I have only one Rock Star on my field, I can tribute this one…” Zael shot an apologetic glance to Jesse who shrugged back at him. “to summon a new one from my deck. I tribute Radiant Rock Star to summon my Rock Star Girl!”

Jesse disappeared with a sad sigh, in his stead, Rock Star Girl appeared. 

“Rock Star Girl gains 300 attack points for every Rock Star in my graveyard. Back then, when I discarded three cards because of the Security Guard Card, I discarded three monster. Plus I just tributes Radiant Rock Star, which means my monster will gain 1200 attack. With the 2000 base attack she has, she has more attack points than all of your monster.”

“Hmph. Fine. I end my turn.”

“Good! It's my turn! Draw!” Zael smirked at his drawn card. “I activate Tomorrow's Rock Star’s effect. I can special summon him to my field! But he destroys every Rock Star on my field, so bye bye Rock Star Girl!”

“It destroys your monster?”, Lucas asked with a raised eyebrow, making Zael chuckle.

“Yes! Chazz, the spotlight is on you!”

“There's only enough spotlight for one! And that one is me, The Chazz!”, was Chazz's answer as he rose on the field, smirking at Lucas and his monster.

“When Tomorrow's Rock Star is summoned this way, all of the attack points of the monster he destroyed will be added to his own. So Rock Star Girl's 3200 attack will be added to his 2500 attack points. Making 5700 attack points!”

Lucas's eyes widened. “5700 attack points?”

“That's right! And he can get even more! Per turn, I can banish up to 2 Rock Stars from my graveyard. For every card, Tomorrow's Rock Star gains 400 attack points. I banish Rock Star Drummer and Rock Star Girl to have his attack raised to 6500! And then; battle! Chazz, show'em why you're the best! Attack his Sorceress!”

“Leave it to me!”, Chazz called, but Lucas interrupted him. “Hold on! As long as my Princess is on the field you can only attack her!”

“Well fine!”, Chazz snarled. “Then I'll just attack this monster!”

Sending Princess of the Rose flying with a fist, the damage was also sent to Lucas, who took the 3900 damage without batting an eye.

“I set a card and end my turn.”

“Good. It's my turn! I draw!” Lucas narrowed his eyes as he stared at Zael and Chazz, hatred in his eyes. “You think you've won, do you? You and that rich brat can't win against me. I, who have endured so much and grew stronger!”

Chazz's eyes widened. “I had to crawl into the depths of hell to make this deck. You have no idea what I've been through!”, his own voice snarled in his head. 

“Were you always like this? Maybe I've been wrong about you.” At Zael's exclamation, Chazz looked up, meeting Zael's disappointed and angry gaze, not directed at him, but his past friend.

“Maybe.”

Zael opened his mouth to say something, but Chazz was faster. “He feels misunderstood. He feels like there's no one who agrees with him, who understand him.”

Zael's eyes widened. “Chazz?”

“I think I know how he feels. But what he's doing is wrong. We need to make him understand that his friends”, he briefly locked eyes with Zael, “ are there for him. And that his anger is best used on the one causing it, not on innocent people.”

“How do you know…?”, Zael asked with a confused voice, making Chazz smile slightly. “I guess I just felt a lot like him in the past.”

The blue haired boy at his side nodded happily, grinning. “You're telling me not to give up on him right? That he's still my friend under all that hatred?”

Curtly, Chazz nodded. “And because you are his friend, you're one of the only people who are able to get through to him.”

“Huh...that's surprisingly cheesy out of your mouth, Chazzie. Didn't expect that from you, to be honest.”

“W-what! You know what, fine. If you ever want advice from The Chazz again, I won't give you anymore. Screw you, Zael.”

Zael only chuckled at that, his gaze shifting back to Lucas. “I'm only teasing. You were very inspirational. It's time to make that hatred go away, so I can reach the true Lucas underneath. With dueling!”

“And you're telling me I'm cheesy.”

“Quit your talking!”, Lucas snarled. “It's my turn! I draw! I activate the effect of Breathtaking Rose Garden. I change the battle position of my Warrior Lady to Defense and return Princess of the Rose to my hand. My monsters gain 300 attack points and you lose 300 life points! As a bonus, my Warrior Lady's effect activates and she gains 500 attack points!”

This time, the power of the windstorm hit heavier than before, making Zael lose balance as he fell to the ground with a scream.

“Zael!” Jayce and Chazz called out, Ray only gasping in shock.

“I am strong!”, Lucas shouted. “I'll prove it! Because my level 3 Sorceress of the Rose is a Tuner Monster, I can tune her into my level 4 Warrior of the Rose to call my ultimate monster! Pitch-black flower, bloom once more. Engulf the world in your cold cruelty.”

Lucas pointed his pointing finger up, behind him a pillar of light shooting to the sky, scattered black rose petals slowly sinking to the ground.

"Synchro summon! Rise, Black Rose Dragon Queen!”

It was the monster they saw when they first saw Lucas. It was the monster with the upper body of a woman with fair skin, brown eyes, and dark burgundy hair, mostly chin-length with the addition of long, elbow-length bangs that frame both sides of her face. Her front bangs were stopped from falling into her face by a device similar to a hair curler on top of her head, green in color with Rose's peeking out on the left and right side. Her upper body dressed in a dress of dark rose petals, her lower body was that of a dragon, wings of black rose petals and body of dark prickly vines, some of them separating to destroy the Rose Garden Lucas had made before, leaving a trail of destruction.

“You won't stand in our way”, she snarled at Zael and Chazz, both of them taking a wary step back.

“So that's his Akiza, huh.” 

“S-scary…”

Lucas laughed. “You should be scared. Akiza is not only beautiful but also exceptionally strong. I activate Black Rose Dragon Queen’s effect! Once per turn, I can banish one plant monster from my graveyard I can change the battle position of an attack mode monster to defense mode. Its defense will turn to 0. I banish Sorceress of the Rose and will let your pathetic Rock Star change battle position!”

Having no control over his body, Chazz had no choice but to switch into defense mode, forced by the vines of the opponent monster.

“By the way, forgot Ivy Shackles yet? Your Rock Star is a plant monster which switched positions just now. You'll lose 300 life points thanks to Rose Petal Storm again!”

The storm knocked Zael right off his feet again.

“You know Zael, you lost 1800 life points just to Rose Petal Storm. And you know how many attack points my Black Rose Dragon Queen has? 2200 attack points just as many as you have left. And your monster has 0 defense points. And now imagine...my monster does piercing damage! Where does it leave you? At 0 life points! Attack, Akiza! Wipe him off the face of Earth!”

“Shit, Zael, I hope you have a plan!”

Zael only grinned wryly, just like he had when Jesse was tributed. Chazz had already lost all hope. “Sorry, Chazz. I activate my quick-play spell! Underhand Dealing! With this, my monster will gain 300 attack and defense points until the End Phase.”

“That's all?”, Chazz shouted, Zael grinning at him in an almost painful manner again. “Don't worry, the graveyard can't be that scary! Jesse's there too! And because of that little buff, I won't go down this turn.”

Chazz was about to say something in protest, but the attack hit him in exactly that moment, shattering his holographic image into pieces. “I'm really sorry!”, Zael called after nothing in particular, Lucas laughing at him. “You may have survived this turn, but I'll get you next turn. All I need is the effect of Rose Petal Storm in combination Breathtaking Rose Garden. Those 300 damage will take you down. Then it's over. I set this card and you can enjoy your last turn.”

Zael gritted his teeth. “Chazz and Jesse didn't sacrifice themselves for nothing! I draw!”

His eyes widened as he looked at the card. “This is…!”

“What's wrong? Didn't get what you wanted?”

Zael shook his head, smiling at Lucas. The brunette's staggered back, gasping. “The opposite, actually. With this single card, I can change everything. I activate the spell card One Last Encore! If I have more than double your life points, all of the cards on the field will be mixed back into our decks. Which means your field spell, your two continuous traps, your set card, and your monster will all disappear.”

Lucas's eyes widened. “What?”

“You heard me. And then we can both summon a monster with a level equal to all the cards that were sent back because of this effect from our deck, hand or graveyard. The number of the cards sent back this way is 5.”

Both of the players looked through their deck, Lucas with a slightly shaking hands, eyes still wide.

“I choose my Rock Star Drummer. I summon him in Attack Mode.”

“What? This monster only has 500 attack points. It defense points are 2300, though. Why not summon it in defense mode and stall for one more turn? It's not like Lucas still has his combo…” Jayce asked with slight confusion, Ray next to him shrugging.  
“I'm sure your friend has a plan.”

All of them were still waiting for Lucas, who had reached the end of his deck, white as a sheet. “I…”, he whispered. “I don't have a level 5 monster.”

Jayce and Ray gasped in surprise, but all Zael did, was to smile warmly at Lucas. “I knew that. You always hated the number 5, so you always refused to put one of those in your deck. Told me about that by that river, you remember?”

Lucas just stared at Zael, mouth slightly opened. “...I do”, he said after a long while, for a second, an expression close to wistful on his face.

“I win this time, Lucas. I attack you directly with my Rock Star Drummer!”

There was barely a shift in Lucas's face as he lost, his life points dropping to 0. All he did was to close his eyes, opening them as soon as it was over.

“Next time...will be different.”

Zael smiled at that. “Sure! See you around, Lucas.”

He turned around to leave, starting to walk. “Goodbye, Zael.”

“Bye! But man! We should totally duel for fun more often! You're so good!”

Lucas stopped walking but didn't turn around. “For fun?”

Zael nodded, ignoring that Lucas wasn't able to see him. “Yeah! 'cause that's what friends do right!”

At the word “friend” the green-eyed brunette jumped, choosing to stay silent for another minute before finally turning around. It was only a slight smile, but it was there. “Yeah...friends, huh. I'm sorry. For being a jerk. And hurting you on purpose.”

(“What about the neighborhood?”, Ray asked, but Jayce shushed him.)

“It's fine, hey, why don't you come with us? We can talk everything out, play some tag duels, just like back then!”, Zael suggested, but Lucas shook his head.

“I have to clear my head, Zael. I need some time alone. I promise we'll meet and talk about all this, okay?”

Disappointed, Zael pouted. “Well fine I guess. Remember, you promised!” 

Lucas chuckled, turning around again. “I did. Goodbye and thank you, Zael. I won't forget this.”

And with those words, Lucas left, leaving Zael with a slightly confused Jayce, a very confused Ray, a disappointed Jesse and a very salty Chazz.

(“By the way”, Jayce started. “Are you fine, Zael? Those attacks looked painful.” 

But Zael had already fainted, so he couldn't answer.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome, Seto Kaib- I mean, Lucas! His full name is Lucas Green-Wiltshire by the way.
> 
> Next Chapter: Get ready for Aster Phoenix and Mai Valentine!
> 
> Edit 31st October: Fixed a mistake in Jayce and Aerrow's Duel. Added XYZ and Synchro summonings.


	4. Partner! And then some.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Small error fixes and added XYZ and Synchro summoning chapter 1-3.

“Lucas Green-Wiltshire.” Warily, Lucas turned around. A silver-haired man, taller than him, stood in front of him. Behind him, three spirits looked ready to fight. Lucas looked at him with wide eyes. “It's you!”

The other narrowed his eyes. “So you still recognize me. I'm impressed.”

“Cut the bullshit!”, Lucas calls. “The fuck do you want?” His hands were shaking and his jaw was clenched. “Zachary Astria!”

“Isn't it obvious?”, the other replied. “I have spirit cards and you have a spirit card. I'm here to take it from you of course.”

Lucas laughed, then tilted his head with a wry smile. “Walking through this dark alleyway was probably a mistake, wasn't it?”

“It was”, Zachary said. “Let's duel, Lucas. The winner gets all.”

“Why duel me when you can just beat me up and steal it?” He activates his duel disk anyway.

“I'm not a barbarian, you know.” Zachary activates his duel disk as well.

“Duel!”

\---

“He has one.” Zael looked up at Jesse in wonder. “That one, over there? The blond?” The spirit nodded. “Yeah. I can feel some presence with him. It's similar to when I was able to feel that Chazzie, Ray, and Akiza aren't from here. Duelists from where ever we are from have this certain feel to them, ya know?” Zael looked a bit lost. “I...can't really say I know.”

Ray next to Jayce shuddered a bit. “I think this one might be strong. Maybe even stronger than Akiza? Wait, no...aw, I can't really tell after all.” Chazz groaned loudly while Jesse chuckled, Ray looking slightly flustered. Zael laughed. “Well, let's find out, shall we?”

“Zael, wait, you're still hur-”

“Nah, I'm not! Lucas wasn't really serious about hurting me so that were just some scratches!”

“No, they were not…!”

“Hey, you! Let's duel!”

Jayce sighed. “Well, I guess it's fine. If he can ignore me to run around asking people to duel, he's fit enough for one, alright.”

“Is he really, though?”, Ray asked, making Jayce furrow his brows. “Don't make me doubt him, Ray.”

The blond agreed to duel. “Hey, aren't you blackbird? My name is Adam. It's such an honor to duel you.” Zael grinned. “Aw, are you a fan? Tell you something, I have been promising fans that if they defeat me, I'll fulfill them a wish! You interested?”

Adam laughed. “Well, of course. Why don't we go ahead and start then?”

“Sure, let's get it on!” They activated their duel disks. Jayce was watching from the sidelines, murmuring something about a tag duel he never got. Ray patted his shoulder.

“Duel!”

Adam drew first. “I will start! I draw!” He pulls out a spell card from his hand and shows it to Zael. “From my hand, I activate my spell! Magical Mallet! It allows me to choose certain cards in my hand and mix them back into my deck. Afterward, I can draw as many cards as I mixed back. I will mix these three cards back. Now, I will activate my field spell! Temple of the Mind's eye!” The card's image was projected around them.

“As long as this card is in the game, all battle damage will be 1000.” Zael pouted at that. “What? That's boring!” Adam laughed again. “You might think that, but it's my strategy. Well then, let's continue, shall we? I activate Polymerization from hand! I fuse The Sin of Sloth and The Sin of Greed.”

He clapped his hands like it's usual for people who learned Fusion summoning in duel academy. Jayce rolled his eyes at that. “Fusion Summon! I summon Karma in attack Mode!” Jesse gasped next to Zael. Karma's eyes widened as well. “It's As! How ya doing?”

“Uh, fine I guess. And you?” 

“Don't make small talk!”, Zael complained, making Jesse chuckle. “It's Aster Phoenix! Ya remember him, Chazzie?”

“No. And don't call me that.”

Aster smiled at them. “Didn't think I'd be so glad to see Chazz, ever.” Jesse laughed. “Yeah, I know exactly how ya feel!”

“Hey, what's that supposed to mean?!”

Zael sighed as his spirits. Adam did so as well, shaking his head in clear amusement. “We can continue while they're catching up”, he chuckled. “I end my turn.”

“Okay, I'll go next! Draw!” Zael smirked. “Watch! I summon Rock Star Groupie in attack mode! I know his attack points are low, but…” He pointed at Aster, still conversing with Jesse. “Look! Your monster has 0 attack points! Why did you bother summoning it in this position? And you set no cards for your defense as well, so there's no trap! I got this in the bag!” Adam smirked. “We'll see about that.”

“I activate Rock Star Groupie's effect! I can look at the first five cards of my deck. If there's a Rock Star Monster among them, I can summon them toy field. And look, there is! I summon Rock Star Drummer in attack mode!” Zael's two monsters we're at 900 and 500 attack points. “I'm not done yet! I activate the spell One Hit Wonder from my hand! With this, I'm able to summon a level 4 or lower monster from my hand. It will be destroyed in the end phase and I'll take its attacks points as damage, but it'll be worth it. I summon Rock Star Soloist!” Now Zael had three monsters. All of them had below 1000 attack points, however. It didn't seem to bother Zael.

“Soloist usually gets a boost if I have two monsters or less. Isn't the case here, however. So he stays as his measly 400 attack points. Doesn't matter, however. Battle! I attack Karma with Soloist!” Because of Temple of the Mind's Eye, Adam takes 1000 damage even though it usually would've been 400. “I activate Karma's effect!” Aster seemed annoyed because his conversation was cut off. “When I take battle damage because Karma was attacked in attack position, I can choose a card in my deck and take it to my hand. Also, Karma can't be destroyed by battle in this position.”

Zael snarled. “Well, fine! I'll just continue attacking! Go, Drummer!” Adam took 1000 damage points again. He activated Karma's effect. “And now, Groupie!” Another 1000 life points less left. He activated Karma's effect again. Aster did not look amused.

“I'm the end, your field spell backfired on you. My monsters’ combined attack doesn't even reach close to 3000 attack points. They only were able to do this much damage because of Temple of the Mind's Eye. And all you for your efforts were three cards. Was it really worth it? Look! I activate Cold Wave from my hand! With this, you won't be able to activate a spell until my next turn. So even if you got amazing cards, there's no card that can get you out of this situation!”, Zael says, grinning. 

“Oh, but I can think of at least one combination of card that will win this turn.”

Seven heads turned around at the new voice, coming from behind Jayce. It was a girl with purple hair, some of the purple strands covering her right eye. The rest of the hair was tied into a ponytail behind her back, still long enough to reach her waist. Zael smiled radiantly at her. “Christina! Haven't seen you in ages!” She smiled and waved. “You haven't grown an inch, Zael.”

“Hey! I resent that!” She laughed. Ray next to Jayce seemed to want to keep as far away from her as possible. Jesse looked at her with a questioning gaze. So did Aster.

“So how is he supposed to win this?”, Zael asked her, making her shake her head. “Watch. You'll see soon enough.”

Zael ended his turn. Soloist was destroyed and Zael took his 400 attack points as damage, leaving him at 3600 life points.

Adam nodded. “Watch! I draw!” He smirked. “And with this, I won.” He revealed his hand. There were the five parts of Exodia.

Zael's jaw dropped. Behind Adam, the five parts of Exodia began to manifest, as they launched an attack at Zael, leaving his life points at 0. “Aw. I actually lost.”

Christina chuckled. “That's what I told you would happen, midget.” Zael pouted. “I resent that! You and Lucas grew so damn big! And Ashton was always gigantic.” She patted his shoulder with a laugh. “Aerrow should be your size, still.” Zael looked actually upset.

“Uhh, no! He's also bigger than me now. It's the worst! Recently, some newspaper said that I'm probably the tiniest Rock Star in all Consteller City! Can you believe it!” Christina started laughing. She wiped a few tears from eyes. “Oh, that article. I kept it.”

“Oh screw you!” They kept bickering back and forth a bit, both Jayce and Adam patiently waiting for a bit until clearing their throats. “You promised me a tag duel”, Jayce said. “Can I get my wish fulfilled, Blackbird?”, Adam asked. Zael turned to Adam first. Jayce sniffed a bit.

“Sure! What's your wish?” Adam smiled. “We didn't talk about how many points we'll get for a win, yes? I want to have all of your points for this win.” Zael blanched. Jayce blinked. Even Christina looked taken back by the bold claim.

“But that'll throw me out of the tournament!”, Zael finally managed to get out, Adam still smiling. “Well, how unfortunate. But you'll keep your promise to your fan, won't you, Blackbird?”

Zael swallowed thickly. “Don't you want to see your Idol Duel some more?”, he asked, nervous. Adam's smile started to look fake. “No. I want to win this.”

“Mean! As, stop him!”, Jesse called, enraged, but Aster just shook his head. “He did promise that you know. Losing has its price, especially if you underestimated your opponent. It's Karma”, he said, Chazz rolling his eyes. “He's trying way too hard.” Jesse nodded next to him.

“Come on, be a man and pay up!” Zael sighed. “Guess I have no choice…”

“Wait.” Christina stepped in. She smiled at Zael, reassuringly. “I have a proposition to you. Me and carrot over here”, she lays her arm around Jayce's shoulder, pulling him forwards so that they were facing Adam. Jayce squeaked, very unmanly. “Will duel you too. And if you win, you get our points as well. If you lose, you will lose nothing. You'll just let Zael keep his points.” 

Adam narrowed. “Why should I take on both of you?” Christina clicked her tongue. “Because you have a partner hiding over there.” Everyone looked at where she pointed. There was a girl leaning on the tree, watching them. “Don't think I didn't notice her. Plus, we both have a lot of points. I have 800 and carrot here has a fat 900. Zael only has 600. Don't you think that risk's worth it?”

He seemed to think about that for a second. Christina had him on the hook. “This'll be a tag duel. You have the chance to get 1700 points with just one win.” Adam finally seemed interested enough. “Good. We'll do that.” He waved the girl over. Her purple hair whipped back and forth as she comes closer.

“Why me?”, Jayce groaned, still in Christina's grip. “Aw, but I thought you wanted a tag duel, little one?”, she cooed, making the other groan again. “Yes, but I wanted one with Zael and maybe bet like 100 points or something...wait, little one?” Christina kindly ignored his last statement. “Zael and I are childhood friends. We duel pretty much the same way anyway”, she said with a smirk, Zael complaining behind her. “And you want to help him, don't you?” Jayce sighed. “I guess I do…” She smiled. “Good! Then let's roll, kid!” 

“But I'm your age…”

Adam's partner arrives. “My name is Laetitia. I am impressed that you were able to make the connection between me and Adam”, she says with a monotonous voice, not looking impressed at all. Jayce tried to smile, but it came out crooked. “Nice to meet you…?”

“Let's duel”, was the reply he got. His smile got even more crooked. Ray voiced his concerns next to him (“you okay? smiles usually don't look that way…” “shut up”) but despite that, the four Duelists took their stance and started their duel. Zael, a weird mix between pout and relief on his face, watched from the sidelines.

“Let's Duel!”

\---

Akiza roars as she took over the field. The hunter had three set cards and four hand cards, no monsters. His life points were at 2600, his frown still fresh as he had just lost his monster.

Lucas had Akiza on his field - also his Beautiful Rose Garden and his Ivy Shackles and Rose Petal Storm combo. He had three hand cards and 3800 life points.

“I end my turn.” Lucas was sweating. Zachary Astria had improved his dueling greatly. Even if he had an advantage now, he had used a wide variety of strong cards to get this far - Zachary had easily defended himself without a worry in the world.

“Hmph. I expected more from you, Green-Wiltshire. But now that you brought your spirit out, I might as well finish this. My turn.” He drew.

“I summon Numbers’ Archive: XIII! Now, I activate its effect! Once per turn, If this card is normal summoned, I can normal summon one additional time as long as it's a Numbers’ Archive Monster. I summon Numbers’ Archive: XX!” He now had a level three monster with 500 attack points and a level four monster with 1500 attack. “I activate Numbers’ Archive: XX effect! Once per turn, I can raise the level of a monster to four. And I choose the level of my Numbers’ Archive: XIII! Now I overlay my two level four monster and build the overlay network.”

Akiza looked taken back. “Here he comes, Lucas.” Lucas knew she was talking about one of the three spirits with the hunter before. “Shit”, he whispered, readying himself.

“I XYZ summon! Numbers’ Archive: IV!”

A dual brown blond haired manifested. He was wearing something from pretty old times - Lucas couldn't quite place which old times - looking surprisingly good considering he was probably a teenage boy. His eyes were glowing in magenta red, a scar running over his right eye. In his right hand was a noble-looking rapier. He was smiling - in a creepy way.

“Do you recognize him?”, Lucas asked Akiza, but she shook her head, frowning. “I don't. Just like I didn't recognize Jesse and Chazz and Vector.”

The spirit in front of them snarled. “Did you just say 'Vector’? They found Vector! Zac, get them to tell us where he is, I want to kick his ass so badly!”

“Don't call me Zac. And yes, I'm planning to. Not for your sake of course.” Numbers’ Archive: IV looked a bit upset. “I activate Numbers’ Archive: IV's effect. When this card is special summoned, I can detach all of his XYZ material. If I do that, he'll gain attack points in height of all special summoned monsters on the field. He gains the 2200 attack points of your Black Rose Dragon Queen.”

The attack of the hunter's monster raised to 4700. “I trust you'll do well, Quattro?” The enemy spirit sneered. “I always do well, Zac.”

“Don't call me that. I'll attack your Black Rose Dragon Queen with my Numbers’ Archive: IV!” Lucas couldn't do anything but to watch helplessly as Quattro plunged his rapier into Akiza's heart (or where he believed her heart was) and destroyed her, also dealing 2500 damage to his life points. Lucas was left at 1300. “Sorry, Akiza”, he whispered, glaring at the opponent. Zachary had an indifferent facial expression, while Quattro looked quite smug with his smirk. “I end my turn. Your move, Green-Wiltshire.”

Lucas gritted his teeth. “My turn, I draw!”

\---

“I'll start. Draw!” Christina looked at her cards with a smirk. “Watch, I summon this! Supernova Star Eater!” Her monster appeared. It had the level three and 1500 attack points. “I set two cards and end my turn. At the end of my turn, Supernova Star Eater will destroy itself.”

“What?”, Jayce screeched.

“Now I activate Star Eater's effect. If it was destroyed by a card effect I can draw two cards.”

Laetitia nodded. “I'll draw…” She showed them a spell card from her hand. “I activate Ascending Soul from my hand. As long as this continuous spell is in the game, once per turn, if I ritual summon, I can choose one of the monsters I tributed for the ritual summon and take it back to my hand. Next, I activate Cyber Angel Ritual. I send Cyber Angel Idaten to my graveyard to summon Cyber Angel Benten.” Her monster possessed 1800 attack points. “The effect of Ascending Soul activates. I can take Idaten back to my hand. I set a card and end my turn.”

Zael sighed from the sidelines. “I would totally fall asleep dueling someone like that. No offense.” Jesse nodded, agreeing while Chazz rolled his eyes.

Jayce clicked his tongue. “I won't be as careless as Zael.” 

“You're kidding right?”, Iron Man whispered from his hand. Jayce huffed at him. “Shuddup! My turn, I draw! I set a monster face down and set two cards. Your move.”

“Won't save you!”, Adam called. “It's my turn, I draw! I activate Polymerization from my hand! I fuse The Sin of Lust and The Sin of Greed”, he did the academy thing again. Jayce rolled his eyes. “and call Karma to my field! Now I activate Temple of the Mind's Eye. Then I set this card. I'm done.”

“Yes! My turn! I draw!” Christina drew a card from her deck. “I summon the tuner monster Supernova Galaxy Gate!” Its level was two, its attack points 1200. “Then I activate my continuous spell from my hand: The Destiny of the Galaxy! As long as this card is in the game, I can summon a Supernova level four or lower from my deck if one is destroyed once per turn. And, I activate Supply Squad! As long as this continuous spell is in the game, I can draw a card once per turn if one monster I control is destroyed.” She smirked, pointing a finger towards one of her set cards. “And now, I activate my trap! A Star falling! I can choose one of my monster and two of yours and destroy them! I choose my Star Eater and your Benten and Karma.” Laetitia suddenly interrupted. “Trap, activate. Destruction Jammer. I discard one card and negate the activation of your card.” Christina laughed. “Let's continue the chain! Seven Tools of a Bandit, activate! By paying 1000 life points, I can negate the trap card you just activated.” Laetitia didn't look shocked at all. “Oh…”, she said.

“I activate a trap!”, Adam said. “Go, Safe Zone! I can choose one attack position monster on my field. This monster cannot be destroyed by battle or card effect.” He throws an apologetic glance at his partner. She seems indifferent. “I choose Karma.”

The chain resolves and the effect of A Star falling activates. Cyber Angel Benten and Star Eater were destroyed, Karma being spared due to Safe Zone's effect. “Now I activate the effect of Supply Squad! I chain it with the effect of The Destiny of the Galaxy and Galaxy Gate's effect. When Galaxy Gate is destroyed by a card effect, I can summon any Supernova Monster from my deck, hand or graveyard. I summon my level 6 monster: Supernova Red Giant!” It was a monster with massive 2700 attack points. “Now, The Destiny of the Galaxy's effect! I summon another Supernova Galaxy Gate!” 

“Here we go...”, Zael sighed, making his spirits look at him with a questioning gaze. “Christina always had this massive crush on Lucas. And she would always Synchro summon in the flashiest way possible to impress him. Let's see what she'll pull out this time”, Zael explained.

“I tune my level two tuner monster Galaxy Gate into my level six Red Giant to Synchro summon! Appear! Level eight! Supernova Aldebaran!” Her monster was gigantic. Even more gigantic than her Red Giant. Its attack points were at 4000. “Now! I attack Karma with my Aldebaran!”

“Thanks to Temple of the Mind's eye, I only take 1000 damage instead of 4000!”, Adam called. He grunted at the damage he took. “I activate Karma's effect! I can take a card from my deck to my hand.” 

“Hey, I know I'm not that good”, Jayce called. “But why did you attack? He'll get his Exodia!”

“Relax, kid! I have a plan!”

“I'm still your age…”

“I activate Aldebaran’s effect! If it inflicts battle damage you get 1000 damage bonus! And because this isn't battle damage, Karma's effect can't activate!”

Adam gasped. His life points dropped down to 2000. “You know what that means, don't you, Adam?” Christina smirked at him. “Right now, you have three hand cards. Even if you have three parts of Exodia, with the effect of Aldebaran, you won't survive my next attack if Karma's in attack mode. If he's in defense mode, the effect can't activate. I got through your strategy!”

Adam growled. “I can still win. All I need is four parts of Exodia in my hand. If that is the case, if you attack me, Karma's effect will chain Aldebaran's and I get to have five parts before your second effect damage. In that case, I'll win!”

“Whaaat? Someone refresh my Exodia rule knowledge please…”, Zael shook his head. Jesse opened his mouth. Chazz slapped it shut before he could say anything.

“Yeah, have fun praying to Heart of the Cards or whatever. I end my turn! Ah, totally forgot, my Aldebaran destroys itself in my end phase.”

“What! What was all the talking about attacking next turn with Aldebaran if you don't even have it in your field next turn!” Christina shrugged. “I totally forgot about the effect.”

“Don't casually forget that!”

“Reminds me of when Jayce forgot that Hulk will destroy himself!”

“Shut up, Zael! Why is everyone bullying me!”

“Hmm. It's my turn.” Laetitia drew a card. “I activate Preparation of Rites. I can add a ritual monster level seven or lower from my deck to my hand. I also can add a ritual spell from my graveyard to my hand. I choose Machine Angel Ritual from my graveyard and Cyber Angel Idaten from my deck. I activate Machine Angel Ritual. I send the level eight monster Splendid Venus from my hand to my graveyard to summon Cyber Angel Idaten. I activate its effect. I can take a Machine Angel Ritual from my graveyard back to my hand. I will also activate Ascending Soul's effect and return Splendid Venus to my hand. I will now battle. I attack Christina directly with Idaten.”

Christina took 1000 damage thanks to the Temple of the Mind's eye, leaving her at 2000. She took the damage like a champ. “I end my turn.”

“My turn! Draw! Jayce looks at his hand. “From my hand, I activate the spell False HERO! With this, I can special summon a HERO from my hand to the field, but it cannot attack and it'll be destroyed in the end phase. I summon Marvelous HERO Iron Man!”

Iron Man appeared. He looked like he wanted to punch something, but he knew he couldn't. It made him a bit sad. “I summon Marvelous HERO Scarlet Witch from my hand! And then, I'll flip summon! Marvelous HERO Vision!”

Jayce had three monsters on his field now. Two level four monsters that had 1100 and 1500 attack points respectively and a level eight monster with 2800 attack points. Iron Man was unable to attack, however. “I activate Scarlet Witch's effect! If there's another Marvelous HERO on my field, I can double her level, making her level eight!” Christina whistled. “I overlay my two level eight monster and build the overlay network! I XYZ summon! Vector, the Emperor of Honesty!”

Vector appeared on the field. 4000 attack points and goofy grin and all. Aster from the other side narrowed his eyes as if to try to remember if he had seen this person before.

“Battle! Vector, attack Cyber Angel Idaten! Light of Truth!”

Cyber Angel Idaten was destroyed. Usually, Laetitia would've taken 2400 damage, but thanks to Temple of the Mind's eye, she only took 1000. “I activate Vector's effect! I detach an XYZ material and my opponent's next draw phase will be skipped! Which means your draw phase, Adam!” He paled. Jayce turned to Christina. “There! I did the preparations! There's no way for him to have four Exodia parts now! I trust you have a plan, Christina!”

Christina nodded. “Not bad, Jayce. I won't let your effort go to waste. I have a plan.”

“Good! I will now attack you directly with Marvelous HERO Vision, inflicting 1000 damage more to you. Then, I'll end my turn. In my end phase, Vector will destroy himself. But as long as he has XYZ material, he will come back in my next standby phase with same material detached.” 

Jayce was left with Vision on his field. It was Adam's turn. “I…” Adam swallows thickly. “I change Karma's position to defense… then, I'll end my turn.”

Christina groaned. “Boring! Now I can't finish him!” Jayce shook his head. “Don't worry about it. As long as Karma is in defense mode, his effect cannot activate. And Vector does piercing damage. Which means we'll win either way. Concentrate on eliminating his partner.”

Christina smirked. “Got it.” 

“When did he get this strategic”, Zael wondered. “Can't be Ray, right…?” His two spirits shook their heads. “Naaaaaah. You're right. Can't be.”

“It's my turn, I draw! I summon Supernova Star Eater! And I'll attack Leatitia directly!” Laetitia took 1000 damage again. She was left at a measly 1000 life points.

“I end my turn. Star Eater destroys himself, but I can draw two cards.”

“Hmm. My turn. I draw. I activate Dark Cyber Fusion from my hand. With this card, I can use any monster from my graveyard with the name Cyber in them to fusion summon by banishing them from the game. I banish Cyber Angel Idaten and Benten. I fusion summon.” She clapped her hands together. Both Christina and Jayce bristled. “I summon Heartless Bullet Angel in attack mode.”

Jesse and Aster did a collective gasp. It was a woman with curly blond hair, one of her piercing purple eyes substituted with a high tech looking camera or something, glowing in an eerie red. There were wing, presumably high tech as well, coming from her back. She wore a metallic grey skirt and a white, short-sleeved top that left her midriff bare. She also had grey boots and gloves, which left her fingertips uncovered.

“I didn't even feel her until just now!”, Jesse whispered, Zael's eyes narrowing.

The monster possessed 2400 attack points. Laetitia pointed at Jayce's nearly empty field. “I must defeat you before Vector reappears. I activate Heartless Bullet Angel’s effect. If my life points are lower than the life points of my enemy, Heartless Bullet Angel can attack one additional for every thousand I have less. You have 4000 life points. I have 1000. Heartless Bullet Angel can attack three times. I attack your Vision.” 

“Lucky me!”, Jayce called. “Even with your three attacks, thanks to Temple of the Mind's Eye, I won't go down!” Laetitia actually looked a bit shocked. “Ah… well, I just attack Christina then. Direct attack.”

Jayce looked over. Her field was even more empty than his, as she had no set cards as well. And as a bonus, she only had 2000 life points left as well. “What! Attack me instead!”, Jayce snarled. “I activate a trap, HERO Shield! I summon a HERO to my field in attack mode, its attack points will be reduced to 0. You can only attack this HERO, as long as it's on the field! I summon Marvelous HERO Iron Man!”

“I destroy Iron Man and then still have enough power to finish off Christina.”

“And that's where you're wrong!” Laetitia looked up. There was something similar to surprise on her face. “Because Iron Man is not able to be destroyed by battle! You have to waste all three attacks on me!”

“Hmm. I will attack Iron Man three times. You will take 3000 damage.” Jayce laughed as his life points dropped to 1000. “Gotcha!”, he heaved. Laetitia only looked at him disapprovingly. “My turn is done.”

Christina looked at him funnily. Jayce shrugged.

“Great! My turn, I draw! First, Vector will come back to my field with one XYZ material!” Ray threw a worried glance at Jayce. “Are you okay?”

“Never been better. I can count on you, right?” Ray nodded. “Good! I activate A HERO's sacrifice! With this, I can tribute a HERO to summon a new one with the same level or lower from my hand. I tribute Iron Man and summon Marvelous HERO Thor to my field!” His new monster had a level of eight and 2500 attack points. “Thor can attack every monster on the field. He loses 500 attack points per attack, however. Doesn't matter! I attack Heartless Bullet Angel! Because of the effect of Temple of the Mind's Eye, you will lose!”

“He did it!”, Zael breathed out. “There's no traps or hand cards that are able to protect her!”

And true to Zael's prediction, Laetitia fell, zero life points left. “Good, Vector attack! Get Adam's life points down!” Vector's piercing damage was still held back by Temple of the Mind's Eye, leaving Adam at 1000 life points. “I end my turn. Vector will destroy himself, but he'll be back next turn.”

Adam gritted his teeth. “My turn! Draw!” He grinned maniacally at his card. “Ha. Hahaha! I can still win…! I will win! I activate the spell Soul Release from my hand! And I will banish Vector, the Emperor of Honesty from your Graveyard!”

Jayce gasped. “I won't be able to summon him back like this!”

Adam laughed. “Without Vector, you're hopeless! Karma cannot be destroyed by card effect or battle, thanks to Safe Zone! And now, there's no effect stopping me from drawing Exodia!”

Silence fell over the field. “Are they going to lose even though Laetitia ist out?”, Chazz asked with a frown, Zael only shrugging. “Karma is destructible. All they need is an effect that destroys Safe Zone.” Jesse nodded. “Things like Heavy Storm, Mystical Space Typhoon… that would do it.” 

“Yeah, and Vector isn't the only monster with piercing damage in the game as well, you know. It's actually way more likely that Jayce or Christina draw the right card than Adam getting his Exodia together. So he's just talking crazy right now.” Chazz frowned. “Oh. That's cool I guess.”

“I end my turn.”

Christina snarled. “Finally! Your mad talk is over! I will finish you. That boy over there” She points at Jayce, who stared back at her, surprised. “Sacrificed 3000 life points to keep me in the game! I won't let that be for naught. I'll show you what I can do!” 

She drew a card. “My turn, I draw! I activate Monster Reborn from my hand! Welcome back, Supernova Aldebaran!” Her level eight monster rises again. Adam laughed. “Even with that massive monster, you cannot do anything against Karma!”

“Good thing I'm not done yet, then! I activate my spell! Star Tuning! I have to discard a card to activate this effect. Now, when I can normal summon a monster from my hand, it is treated as a tuner this turn! Appear, level four Supernova Meteor Shower!” Her monster, level four with 1800 attack points showed itself. “I tune my level four monster into my level eight monster to Synchro summon!” She pointed her finger to the sky, similar to what Lucas did when he Synchro summoned. “Show yourself! Level twelve, Red Nova Angel!”

Again, all of the spirits’ eyes were on the newly arriving monster. “Another one?”, Jesse whispered, eyes widening. “No way!”, Zael complained. “You guys aren't rare at all! Every duelist I met has one!” Jesse smiled wryly and Chazz rolled his eyes.

The new spirit had purple eyes and spiked blonde hair, with two much longer strands in front of his ears that hang further down the rest of his hair. He was wearing a loose red shirt and pants, held together with simple buttons. A yellow band was tied around his waist, the ends sailing around his feet as he took into the air. His feet and arms were bare, but he had flaming red earrings. From behind his back, there were wings, as usual for an angel, Zael thought, but they were more demonic looking, no feathers but somewhat red, black-rimmed, draconic typed wings.

“3500 attack points?”, Adam said with wide eyes. “But even those won't help you against my indestructible Karma!”

“You're wrong about that!”

“What?”

“When I Synchro summon Red Nova Angel, for every tuner monster in my graveyard, I can destroy a card on the field. I have two Galaxy Gates! Which means I can destroy Safe Zone and your field spell!”

Christina smirked. “When Safe Zone is destroyed, so is the monster that was equipped with it. Karma is destroyed!”

“No…!”, Adam called. “Aster…!”

“Now! Red Nova Angel! Direct Attack!”

The duel was finished. As a final, Adam took 3500 damage, which was more than enough to finish him off. Both him and Laetitia were done. “Wow…”, Jayce breathed out while he took one last glance at Red Nova Angel, admiring the other's strength. Now that the duel was over, Ray was able to appear next to him again. “I knew it! She had one as well”, he whispered, Christina laughing. “I didn't mean to hide it.”

Zael ran over, in tears that his friends were able to save his tournament life - crocodile tears, of course. Christina patted his back a few times, Jayce laughing a bit.

“Hey, let's introduce each other for real, right?” Zael nodded. “Tell us about your spirits!” Jayce agreed wholeheartedly.

“Red Nova Angel's real name is Jack Atlas. He is the best duelist in his world. They call him the king.” The spirit appeared next to Christina to give a curt nod. “Cool”, Jayce said. “Sounds familiar”, Zael commented. Chazz threw him the look.

“And this is Stardust Angel or Yusei Fudo. He's the actual best duelist in their world.” Jack bristled and disappeared, another spirit appearing next to Christina in his place. He nodded at them apologetically. “My name is Yusei. It's nice to meet you.”

“It's nice to meet you”, Jayce repeated. “Reeeeaaaal familiar.” Chazz threw Zael another withering look. “Uuum, I am Ray Shadows! I'm not that great at dueling, so being able to meet so many is a great honor to me!” Yusei laughed. “Judging by your strength on the field and your title as Emperor, I didn't actually expect such a timid person. It's nice to meet you.”

“I'm Jesse Anderson and this grumpy fella is Chazz Princeton! We usually call him Chazzie!” 

“No, we do not!”, Chazz snarled, throwing a missing punch at the dodging Jesse. “If you call me that one more time …” Yusei smiled fondly. “It's nice to meet you. And you're Zael and Jayce, I know that already. Thank you for protecting Christina, by the way.” He nodded at Jayce, who immediately got crushed in a bear hug by Christina. “I know! It was so amazing. I think you might be my best bud now!” Zael rolled his eyes. “Yeah, have fun telling that to Aerrow. He's really attached to Jayce, you know.”

“What”, Jayce squeaked out, trying to escape her grasp. Christina bristled, letting him go and pouted at Zael. He only rolled his eyes again before he turned to Adam and Laetitia, who were both still lying at the ground. “Hey, you guys okay?”

“What happened…?”, Adam groaned, Laetitia next to him rising as well. “You don't remember?” Laetitia rolled her eyes. “If we did, would we ask you?”

“She has emotions!”, Jayce screeched. Christina hushed him.

“Don't be like that, honey. He's just trying to help us”, Adam said, standing up with the help of Zael and pulling the other up afterward. “Thank you”, he said with a smile.

“He's nice!”, Christina screeched. Jayce hushed her.

“Is something wrong?” Adam looked at their group with a worried face. Laetitia rolled her eyes again. “Who cares? We have better things to do.” 

“Ah”, Zael said. “It's just, you act totally different than you just did in our duel.”

“Duel? Oh, I think I can remember bits of dueling against you and your friends. But no matter how hard I try, I can't quite recall what exactly happened…” He seemed to think about it. “And what do you mean, we acted differently?”

“I mean…” Zael scratched his neck nervously. “Your...uh, girlfriend was emotionless and you were kind of a dick.”

“No way. Adam is so nice it's creepy. And he's not doing the creepy part on purpose”, Laetitia said while watching her nails. Zael shrugged. “Only saying how I saw it.”

“This is probably our fault”, a voice from above called. Aster and the blond spirit were floating above. “I wanted to win against Chazz and Jesse so badly. I didn't know these emotions would influence Adam”, Aster admitted, somewhat ashamed. “I'm sorry, Adam.”

Adam looked surprised. “It's no problem, Aster.”

“My name is Mai Valentine”, the other spirit said. “When the tag duel was announced, I feared that Laetitia would try to save Adam without thinking about her own problems. I didn't want a loss because of that. I didn't mean for this to happen.”

Laetitia rolled her eyes. “Just talk to me next time, idiot.”

Zael sighed. “Good thing you realized. Now that you know, think about your partner as well, okay?” Aster's eyes lit up and Mai nodded. “Of course.”

Adam laughed. “Partner, huh. Well, we better get going. We need to collect points, after all, right?” Everyone seemed to agree. Chazz and Jesse waved Aster goodbye and they separated. “Will they be fine?”, Ray questioned. Zael nodded. “They are aware that they have a partner they have to look out now. They'll do well and maybe we'll even see them again. In the finals.”

“Talking about partners”, Jayce suddenly said. “I think it's time you told me about where you know Lucas and Christina from. And who is that Ashton fellow?”

Christina looked between the two boys. “You didn't tell him? Aren't you close friends?”

“We are, but I didn't tell anyone”, Zael simply said, shrugging. “Feels like a pain to tell.”

“Tell you what. I tell Jayce the story because he is my new best bud and in return, you tell me all about your recent meeting with Lucas. You did imply that you met him, don't think I didn't notice!” Zael sighed. “Yeah yeah. But can we duel while you tell him? I feel kind of bad after you called my 600 points measly.”

\---

Lucas stared at his card in shock. It didn't help him at all. It was completely useless. He can't stop Quattro with this.

With gritted teeth, he set a card, unable to even set a monster as he didn't have one. “I …”

Suddenly, a voice called out. “Not so fast!”

Three heads were turned to where it came from, from above. What they saw was a teenager jumping down and landing next to Lucas with a smirk. “Don't mind if I do!”

He activated his Duel Disk. _“Intruder. 2000 life points penalty”_ , an automatic voice said. The intruder didn't seem to care. “Now you can end your turn. I'll be going next!”

Lucas stared at him with wide eyes. “Hello? End your turn.” He blinked. “I end my turn.”

“Ha! My turn, I draw! I activate Heavy Storm from my hand. I don't want your little traps fumbling with my game plan now!” Not only Zachary's cards were destroyed but also Lucas's, leaving his field completely empty. He gaped a little at that, but the intruder waved him off.

“From my hand, I activate the spell Blazing Flame Fire Fusion! With this, I can sacrifice half of my life points to use Blazing Flame Fire monster from my deck to fusion summon. I send Blazing Flame Pegasus Fire, Blazing Flame Dragon Fire, and Blazing Flame Lion Fire to my graveyard and pay 1000 life points! Fusion summon!” He claps his hand together with a wild smile. “I summon Blazing Flame Chimaera Fire!” A fire started in the alleyway, lighting it up so much, Lucas had to avert his eyes for a second. The fire took the form of the mythological beast Chimaera. The monster possessed 2800 attack points. “If Chimaera is fusion summoned, I can destroy as many cards as I want to. But I'll take 1000 damage for every single one. I'll choose 0. This way, I won't take damage!”

He showed them another Polymerization spell. “From my hand, I activate the spell Polymerization! I fuse Blazing Flame Falcon Fire and Blazing Flame Fox Fire from my hand! I fusion summon!” He clapped his hands again. “Appear, Blazing Flame Sphinx Fire!” His new monster was also bright and fiery. It took the form of a Sphinx. Its attack points were 2000. “I activate Sphinx's effect! When this card is fusion summoned, I have to pay half of my life points. But in return, all my current Blazing Flame Fire Fusion monsters can attack you directly!”

Zachary's eyes widened. “What!” He turned to Quattro, expecting a sneer or something along the lines of _do something, he'll win, idiot_ but to his surprise, Quattro only stared up at the flames on the enemy side, pale and shivering, posture tense. Even as Zachary tried to get his attention, he didn't respond at all, completely hypnotized.

“Fine. Looks like I can't ask for your permission on this one. Not that I have another choice, really. From my hand, I activate the effect of Numbers’ Archive: XV! I can send this card from my hand to the graveyard and tribute one Numbers’ Archive monster on my field. All players will take damage in height of its attack. I tribute Numbers’ Archive: IV! All players will take a total of 4700 damage!”

Zachary were at 2600 life points, Lucas at 1300 and the intruder at 500. All of them are going to lose. It'll end in a draw.

Numbers’ Archive: XV's effect activated. All of the duelists staggered back a bit as they lost their life points. “This isn't over, Green-Wiltshire. Today, your friend was able to come to your rescue, but I will claim your spirit next time.” With those words, Zachary opened a portal somehow and started disappearing through it. “Hey, wait! What are you guys planning! Why are you doing this! Hey! Zac!” But he was already gone. Lucas heaved as he sat down for a bit, exhausted.

Footsteps from the other direction than he was facing made him look up for a bit. “Thanks”, he whispered, the intruder only nodding. “But where are you going now, Ashton? We should maybe catch up or something. Haven't seen each other in ages…”

“Shut up.” Lucas's head snapped up. “What?”

“I said shut up. I don't want to talk to you more than necessary. The only reason I saved you just now is that I didn't want the hunter to get even more spirits. I want to have all of them, after all. And with you having yours, I'll have an easier time to get them.”

“Ashton, what…”

“We’ll see each other again soon enough, Lucas. When I duel you to get your spirit.”

He walked away. Lucas couldn't get up to follow him. “Ashton!”, he called. “Ashton, what are you talking about! Why do you want to have the spirits so badly? Explain yourself! Hey!”

There was no answer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This took forever. Why? Been busy writing other stuff and also messing with that Gimmick Puppet Deck I recently got. Man, I love Gimmick Puppets. Constellar was the first XYZ archetype I used, hence the name of the city.
> 
> Bear with me on the Cyber Angel archetype btw, I have no idea how to play them or ritual decks in general. I tried my best though. Had to look up Exodia ruling for this, too, haha.
> 
> Also, I was misspelling "Synchro" my entire life. I always thought it was "Sychro". I don't even know why. If you're reading my story about the kingdoms, that's only one of the reasons why that story is being rewritten from scratch, by the way.


	5. Sorrowful Reunion (1)

“Aerrow! Aerrow!” The boy turned around. “Oh, Zael. Why are you running like this?”

“Look! Look what I found!”

He held up five of the same necklaces, just a simple, thin, metal plate on a chain. Aerrow raised his eyebrows. “That's cool.”

Before he could even add anything, Zael continued to babble, excited. “I know, right? I saw them in the store and begged mom to buy them for me. I was thinking we should wear them. So we'd match!” 

“Match? We aren't small kids anymore.” Zael openly laughed at that response. Aerrow blushed and turned away from his friend. “You always say that. But my mom told me being 10 still counts as being a small kid. So don't be a stick in the mud! Here!”

He held out one of the chains to Aerrow, who took it after a bit of hesitation. “You wear it around your neck”, Zael added a bit uselessly, making the other groan. “I know that!”

He swung the necklace over his head, admiring the metal plate by taking it in his hands and turning it around a bit. “Cool, right? Let's go to the secret base! I want to give them to everyone!”

With this words, Zael sprinted off. Aerrow had trouble keeping up with him, especially because they were running through the forest to get to their secret base. Plus he tripped one time. Zael had helped him up and walked a bit slower after that.

“Guys!”, Zael shouted excitedly once he entered their base. “Guys and Christina! My bad.” The three already in the base perked up. Just like he did before with Aerrow, Zael shoved the necklaces into their face, calling out in excitement how everyone should wear them to match. Christina and Ashton took it without many protests, but Lucas inspected it with a suspicious glance before taking and weighing it in his hand. Ashton snorted. “It's just a necklace, it won't kill you.”

“You never know!”, Lucas argued, finally swinging it over his head. The others did a collective eye roll, excluding Zael, who just genuinely didn't roll his eyes.

“Cheers!”, Zael called and raised his necklace by the plate, the others quickly catching on and doing the same. They clinked the plates against each other. 

“We should get our ears pierced as well! To wear matching earrings!”

“I don't want my ears pierced”, Aerrow said.

“I don't have money for that”, Ashton said.

“We are a bit young for pierced ears, maybe”, Christina said.

“Seth would never allow this”, Lucas said.

“Aw.” Zael looked heartbroken.

\---

They lived in a desolate village close to a forest. The next city was about two hours with car away. That city was a really small one, however. To get to a big city, they had to travel one additional hour with the train.

“Look, Seth bought me new packs!”, Lucas called. Immediately, his friends started to flock him. “I'm so jealous!”, Zael called. “I want to have a big brother who works in the city as well!”

“Yes, but it had a price. His two younger siblings are a pain”, Ashton said. Christina laughed. “Charlotte is like 2. Go easy on her, okay?” 

“Yeah, but Felix is 7 and screams as much as his sister does!”, Ashton complained, only stopping after Lucas elbowed him. “Oh shut it. Nobody forces you to come to my place. Let's don't talk about my siblings. Let's open the packs together. Seth always buys a bit more because he knows I'm sharing them with you.”

The friends squealed in delight and each grabbed a pack of the things Lucas brought. They ripped them open immediately. “Super Rare!”, Zael called, admiring the card in his hand. His friends also turned to look at it in wonder. “It's Blazing Flame Fire Fusion! Can I have it?”, Ashton asked excitedly, Zael shrugging before handing it over. “Sure.”

“Ah! Zael, I got this Rock Star Ultra Rare you wanted!”, Aerrow said, holding a card in Zael's direction, who snatched the card faster than any of the others were able to see. “You're an angel, Aerrow!”

Aerrow laughed. “Technically, Seth is the angel. And Lucas is his messenger.” Zael blinked twice. Then he grinned. “Seth, our angel! Yeah!” 

“I'm sure he'll be happy to hear that”, Lucas mused with a grin. They laughed. “Tell him thanks from us, okay?”, Christina asked, Lucas nodding. “He always looks so happy when I tell him how much fun we had with the cards he brought.”

“He likes seeing you happy. That's why he's spoiling you like crazy”, Ashton commented. Lucas huffed. “I am not spoiled.”

“Actually, I kind of agree with Ash on this one. I know Seth is working but where does he get the money to buy you packs this often? Or remember, he bought you all the game you wanted”, Aerrow questioned.

“Well…” Lucas looked doubtful now. “I don't actually know…”

“Oh, who cares! It's fun right?”

The friends shrugged. “I guess it is”, Ashton said. “I'm sorry.”

\---

“Guys and Christina! Look!” Zael crashed into their secret base, holding a guitar case. He was jumping up and down in excitement.

“What so amazing about a guitar case?”, Ashton snorted, Zael shaking his head, the joke flying right over his head. “There's a real guitar inside here, you dummy! Mommy bought it for my birthday! Look!”

The friends flocked on the ground next to Zael. “Oh, it's so pretty!”, Christina said, moving to touch it. Zael whined. “Please don't touch it.” Christina's hand jerked back.

“Can you even play guitar?”, Aerrow asked. Zael shook his head. “I gotta learn it, still. But I'll do it and then become a Rock Star, just like my cool cards!”

Afterward, Zael barely came to the secret base anymore as he practiced playing. And his talent was soon noticed, and he was scouted. He had even less time.

\---

“I'm moving”, Aerrow said. His friends looked at him with wide eyes. “I’m moving to Consteller City.”

“But why?”, Christina cried out. Aerrow looked away. “Recently, mother had some business in the city. I went with her and dueled with some kids on the street to kill time. Afterward, a man talked to me and my mother. He said I had talent. And that he wanted me in his Duel Academy. He's paying the fees for me.”

“So you're leaving?”, Ashton accused, clearly upset. “After you screamed at Zael, telling him over and over what a traitor he was?”

Aerrow closed his eyes. “I...I know that. I already asked him to meet up so I can apologize, but you know he's busy. I can understand him now. Going out of here to fulfill dreams you have. I...want to fulfill a dream as well.”

“That dream is…?”, Lucas asked, looking sad, but not as upset as the two others.

“I love dueling”, Aerrow explained. “And with Duel Academy, I'll have a chance at getting better, challenging others and climbing the ranks. I want to be number 1.”

Lucas nodded. “I guess we played too many times together. I can pretty much tell what cards you draw. Going out to challenge new is good.”

“You're supporting him? Why? We promised that we'll stay together forever! We carved it into the secret base wall, remember?”, Ashton called. Lucas averted his eyes.

“...I'm going away, too.”

The silence after that was deafening.

“Hey, guys! And Christina. Did you wait for me here?” Four heads turned to see Zael, standing on the grass with half of a wave, looking unsure at the lacking response from his friends. “Did...did I come at a bad time?”

Aerrow shook his head. “N-no. Hey Zael, let's go over there while Luke and Ash talk it out. I have something to tell you.” Zael looked at him with questioning eyes but didn't fight as he was led a bit farther away from the others. Aerrow started talking to him in a hushed tone, Zael considerably brightening up as they spoke.

“So?”, Ashton suddenly sneered. “Why are you leaving?”

“...You know Joshua Green?”

“The rich guy?”, Christina asked, eyes wide. Lucas nodded.

“He's my real father. And he wants me to stay with him from now on.”

His friends’ eyes were nearly bulging out at that. “That's where Seth got the money! It was provided by that rich guy! For you, for his son!”, Ashton called. He sounded outraged.

“I didn't know about it until just recently. Charlotte and Felix still don't know. Seth told them that I'm just going to study at a boarding school.” 

Zael and Aerrow joined the group again. “Looks like it'll be a big goodbye for us, huh?”, Zael said, a fond look on his face. “Don't worry, we'll see each other, right? It's not like this permanent. And even then, we're always with each other in our heart!”

“Cheesy”, Aerrow said.

“I'll miss you!”, Christina cried.

Lucas smiled sadly.

“No”, Ashton said.

All eyes landed on him. “I propose a challenge to you. Let's duel. If I win, you have to stay here, Lucas, Zael, Aerrow.”

“Ash…?”

“Stay out of this Christina. This is a thing between us guys.”

“You want to take us all at once?”, Aerrow asked, eyebrows raised. Ashton rolled his eyes. “If you want to, sure. But I actually meant to go against you one vs one, one after another.”

“We'll do that!”, Zael said excitedly.

“You sure?”, Lucas questioned. “If you lose, you have to give up your dream.” Zael just shook his head. “If I lose it means I'm not ready to go away yet. I have to pack my entire willpower into winning and proving to Ashton that I'm ready. Doesn't that sound exciting? Ashton is like the final boss!”

Aerrow nodded. “If I want to be a pro duelist, I can't lose to Ashton here. If I do, there's no reason for me to meet new opponents. I'll face this final boss.”

Lucas sighed. “Fine. I'll fight you, Ash. One last time. Because I'll win.”

“Let's go then! Duel Disk, set!”, Ashton called. Lucas stepped up first. “I’ll prove to you that I'm ready!”

“Duel!”

“My turn, I draw! I summon Blazing Flame Lion Fire in attack mode! I set a card. Turn end.” Ashton's monster had 1900 attack points. It growled loudly. “As long as this card is on my field in attack mode, in my end phase, I will take 500 damage. You will take 250 damage as well.”

Lucas's life points dropped to 3750, Ashton's down to 3500.

Lucas drew a card. “Here I go! Draw! I summon Warrior Lady of the Rose! She has 1900 attack points, just as much as your Lion has!”

He shows them a spell. “I activate an equip spell! Vile Germs! A plant monster equipped with this card gains 300 attack points. Now, my monster has 2100 attack points, which is a lot more than your Lion! I attack! Go, Warrior's Slash!”

Ashton's monster was destroyed and he took 300 damage, leaving him at 3200 life points.

“I activate a continuous trap! Fighting Fire with Fire! When a Blazing Flame Fire monster is destroyed by battle, you take half of the monsters attack points as damage. I take one-fourth of the damage. Blazing Flame Lion Fire had 1900 attack points! You take 950 damage, I take 475 damage.” Lucas's life points dropped to 2800, Ashton's to 2725.

“Hey! Your cards are hurting you more than they are hurting me right now!”, Lucas called, Ashton frowning. “That's how it is with fire. It's powerful, yes, but also uncontrollable. You can also get hurt.”

“Cheesy!”, Aerrow called. Ashton clicked his tongue, but otherwise completely ignoring the other.

“...I set two cards and end my turn.”

“My turn! I draw! I activate my spell! Last Spark! Thanks to this spell, I can banish a Blazing Flame Fire monster from my graveyard and pay a fourth of its attack points! Then, I can destroy a spell or trap card on the field for every level it has. I pay 475 life points” Ashton's life points dropped to 2350. “And can destroy four spell or traps. But because you only have three on the field, I'll only destroy those three.”

Lucas's equip spell and his two set cards were destroyed. He gritted his teeth slightly, as he wanted to stop a counter-attack with those cards.

“Now I activate Blazing Flame Fire Fusion from my hand!”

Zael and the other two gasped. “That's the card Zael gave to you!”, Lucas called.

“Yes. The card Zael gave to me from a pack you gave to him. It's a sign of our friendship. What better way to get you back to senses other than if this?”, Ashton sneered. Lucas shook his head. “Bring us back to our senses? You need to snap out of it yourself! Just because we'll go away, it doesn't mean we'll break all contact! We'll continue to stay friends, idiot!”

“We both know that won't happen. Look at Zael as an example. Can you tell me how much time we spend with each other er since he has been picked up? How many words did we exchange? Until today, exactly 0.” Zael actually looked a bit guilty at that. He didn't say anything, however. Aerrow put a hand on his shoulder 

“You're overreacting, Ashton!”

“I'm not! You'll see it my way soon! I pay half of my life points!” His life points sunk down 1175. “And fuse Blazing Flame Pegasus Fire, Falcon Fire, and Dragon Fire! Fusion summon!”

His friends gasped. “He knows how to Fusion summon!”, Aerrow shouted, eyes wide in surprise.

“Appear! Level 10, Blazing Flame Phoenix Fire!”

His monster was a soaring flame high in the sky, screeching as it took its form as the majestic bird it was. Its attack points were 2800. The others’ eyes nearly bulged out.

Even after its summoning, the Phoenix continued to screech, spreading its flaming wings as the fire seemed to grow bigger and stronger.

“Ashton…”, Lucas called, but Ashton was laughing, smiling at his opponent in a crazed way no one of them had ever really seen before. “Battle! I attack your Warrior Lady with my Phoenix!”

The Phoenix screeched once again as it flew a bit higher, spreading its wings and finally soaring down at Lucas's monster, making it shatter. Usually, nothing more would happen here. Lucas would take some damage, pretend like it's the end of the world like every duelist, then go on like nothing happened. But that wasn't the case. Instead, as the flaming wings touched the grass, they started to burn, the fire rapidly starting to spread.

Zael jerked back with a scream, the other two shouting. Ashton ignored them. His monster's fire grew and grew, as his laughter also got louder and louder.

“Ashton!”, Aerrow called desperately. “Ashton, what's going on!” He shook his head. “It's pointless. He won't listen!”

“I've never seen him like this before…!”, Christina cried.

The fire surrounded Lucas, eyes widened in fear as he was able to feel real heat radiating from them. Smoke was rising and he started to cough, tearing up a bit. “I won't let you escape!”, Ashton shouted. “I won't let you betray me!” 

And then, the flames stung Lucas's left arm and hand. He screamed and tried to jump away from them, but his right elbow also touched, making him screech in fear and pain again. Ashton seemed to laugh at his misery.

“Stop! Stop it!” Suddenly, he was tackled from behind. Both Christina and Aerrow had found a way through the flames to the other, now holding the significantly bigger person down. Ashton shouted and tried to wind out of their grasp, but it was futile.

Christina managed to get his duel disk off somehow and smashed it into the ground with a snare, the disk shattering and shutting down as a consequence. And like magic, the monsters and flames disappeared, leaving five heavily breathing kids on a half-burned forest clearing.

\---

“We all distanced ourselves from each other after that. Ashton was the first to disappear. He and his mother just moved away one day, without a word. It was like they disappeared off the face of the earth. I still don't know what happened to him, or what he's doing right now.”

Christina watched the duel Zael was having with someone, distant look on her face. 

“Lucas got treatment in some fancy hospital his father could afford. He left to go there and never came back. And soon afterward, Zael and Aerrow left as well, as nothing was holding them in the village anymore. And I was left all alone.”

Jayce wasn't sure what to say. Zael won his duel and waved them with a smile.

“Well, time passed and I heard about this duel tournament. I was a little curious on how everyone has been. And I figured that Aerrow would participate, as he said he wanted to be number 1. I was thinking it would be good to reconnect to him first and talk to the others one by one. I really didn't think Zael and Lucas were participating as well.”

She smiled and turned the bracelet with the metal plate she was wearing around in her hand.

“I really missed the boys.”

Jayce sighed. “I feel kind of bad for trying to push Zael into telling me.” Christina shrugged. “You couldn't have known. And even though Zael is a pretty open person, he likes to live in the moment, meaning his past is shrouded in mystery. It's a bit unsettling, so I get you.”

Jayce sighed once more. “I do kind of wonder what happened to Ashton, though.”

“Me too.”

“Me three.”

The two friends sitting together jumped up, Jayce's head hitting the head of the person who was talking to them, as they were standing there bowed down to them.

“Ow!”, both of them claimed at the same time, jumping apart from each other while both holding their heads. “It's Aerrow!”, Ray called, Christina eyes widening. “No, it's not. Impossible.”

Aerrow tilted his head. “That's kind of rude.”

Ray and Jayce looked between the two childhood friends, a confused expression on their faces. “Christina?”

But then she just laughed and laughed, even tears coming to her eyes as she doubled over laughing. “I can't believe it! Did you pierce your ears? I knew Zael was going to do it, but you too?” Immediately, Aerrow flushed red, his hands snapping up to hide the simple silver rings on his earlobes. “And what happened to your hair? Did you dye it blue to match Zael or something? This is too good!”

“S-shut it. I can do whatever I want with my hair.” Christina only laughed harder. “Cute and well-behaved Aerrow finally hit his rebellious phase. So adorable. Let me cuddle you!” And she jumped him, locking him in an inescapable hug. Aerrow hugged back with a slight smile.

“Wait, Aerrow's hair wasn't always blue?”, Jayce suddenly screeched, even his spirit jumping at his loud exclaim. Zael finally arrived next to them. “Didn't I tell you? Aerrow is actually a boring black-haired person.”

“You didn't tell me anything!”

Zael shrugged with a laugh. “Oh, sorry. Aerrow used to have black hair. Then he bleached it and dyed it blue. I think he wanted it to match his Obelisk Jacket.” Aerrow blushed. “I did not dye my hair to match my Obelisk Uniform!”

“He totally did”, both Christina and Zael said in unison. Jayce laughed. Aerrow blushed even harder.

“He's not a natural blue-haired, huh”, Jesse said to Chazz who was watching them with a raised eyebrow. “Yeah, looks like he isn't your long lost brother, sorry.” Jesse tilted his head. “Is it weird for me to say I always wanted a long lost brother so that I could find 'em?”

“Yes”, Chazz simply said.

“You're both still wearing that necklace”, Aerrow said nostalgically, both Zael and Christina grinning at each other. “That's why I was immediately able to recognize her. Amazing!”

“Why aren't you wearing it, though?”, Christina asked Aerrow, who shrugged and tried to pull something out of the breast pocket of his dress shirt. It clinked a bit and his eyes brightened as he pulled it out. It was the same necklace Zael and Christina wore. “I'm not wearing it but it's still with me all the time.”

Christina whistled. Zael grinned. “You know, when I met Lucas earlier he was wearing it too! And he also had his ears pierced!” The three immediately grinned. “It's just as Lucas said, even though we were apart physically, we were with each other in spirit.”

“Cheesy”, Aerrow commented. The other two burst out laughing. “That brings back memories! You always used to say that.”

“I feel kind of left out”, Jayce said. Ray patted his shoulder. “That's how I always felt with Yuma and his friends too.”

“Don't be sad, Jayce”, Christina cooed. “You'll always be my bestest friend!” Aerrow actually looked a bit offended. Zael and Jesse found it hilarious. Chazz said something about wanting to win duels. Ray felt out of place. Yusei and Jack were silent and didn't show.

“Lucas said he needed some time to be alone and think and that stuff. I'm sure he'll be up for a reunion”, Zael said, the others cheering.

(“Are we not going to talk about how he nearly killed you with plants?” “Hush, Jayce.”)

“So...we only need Ashton, huh.” The mood immediately dropped. “Oh, who needs Ashton for fun anyway! We should just meet without him!”, Zael suddenly exclaimed, making the others look up in surprise. “I guess you're right...”, Aerrow reluctantly agreed, Christina shrugging.

Chazz narrowed his eyes, turning to Jesse. “This isn't like him. Remember when we fought Lucas, he was so adamant to stay friends with him and even took a bunch of hard hits.” Jesse nodded. “It is a bit weird.”

“I think there's more to this than Christina or Aerrow think.” They silently discussed what they were thinking about, sometimes throwing a glance at Zael's direction who talked to his friends animatedly.

“Phew! I'm so glad I went here to meet up with you guys. I missed you so much! The village is way too silent without you.”

“Sorry for leaving you behind”, Zael said, but Christina shook her head. “I would be mad if you gave up your dreams go hang out with me. I'd much rather have it this way.”

“I got it! We're exactly four people, right? Let's do a reunion tag duel!”, Zael suddenly said, Christina jumping up. “Yes! Thousand times yes! But I wanna partner with my bestie! Let's get'em Jayce!”

“Oh, okay, I guess…”

“We'll show them the wrath of the blue-haired!”, Aerrow said, Zael next to fake blanching. “Your one-liners are so bad!” 

“Shut it!” They stood opposed to each other, ready to activate their duel disks. But a voice interrupts them.

“Oh, a reunion duel. How cute. Can't I participate?”

\---

Lucas sighed, running his right hand over his scarred left arm. Akiza watched.

“Where did you get those?”, she then asked quietly. Lucas looked up to her. “I...had a duel. With a friend. He wasn't able to control his power.”

There was a small silence between them. “It was the boy from before, wasn't it?” Lucas nodded. “It was Ashton. From my five childhood friends, I always got along with him best. He was completely heartbroken when I told him I would leave. He just wanted to stop me and took it a bit too far. I...don't really hold a grudge.”

Akiza put her hand on his scarred one as well. He looked up in surprise. “I used to hurt a lot of people as well. With the power we possess.” She looked wistful for a second. “But someone saved me. A man. His name is Yusei. He made clear to me that my power isn't a curse, but a blessing. And he accepted me the way I was. Thanks to him, my relationship to my parents was fixed, I was able to go after my own dream with self-confidence and I finally belonged somewhere. He saved me.”

Lucas seemed to think deeply about that. “Ashton needs someone to save him too”, he then concluded, dropping himself in the chair of his room. Akiza followed him with her eyes. “The friend that saved you…”, she started, but Lucas shook his head rapidly. “Zael doesn't want anything to do with Ashton.”

“He didn't seem like a person to hold a grudge. After all, he just accepted you back, too.” Lucas shook his head again. “Zael is scared of fire. Because fire killed his sister and father.”

Akiza looked to the ground. “The day Ashton burned me he was there too. He was frozen in place for ages, just staring. With me, he was able to tough it out because it's just plants in his eyes. But ever since that incident, he has been adamant on staying away from Ashton.”

Lucas sighed. “And then, someone, I don't know who told him that Ashton was dueling somewhere close the day his father and sister died. You know what conclusion his mind must've come up with.”

“...he must've thought Ashton caused the fire that killed his family.”

“Exactly. I still remember the day I had to talk that shit out of him. It was a dark place for Zael, and I don't want him to go there anymore. And that's why Zael is unable to help him. He simply can't. I still think those thoughts are present within him.”

Both Akiza and Lucas stayed silent afterward. Lucas let his head fall on his table. “Which means I have to save him. Just like that Yusei did for you and Zael did for me.”

Akiza nodded. “You can do it. But I am curious. What spirit was with him…?”

\---

“I just heard how much you missed me”, Ashton sneered. “And I couldn't resist saying hello.” The atmosphere tensed. Zael had already jumped back a few steps and watched him with eyes filled with distrust. Ray whimpered a bit to Jayce who watched the arrived with a wary expression. He towered all three of them, a giant even next to Lucas or Christina.

“Ash…!”

“Careful, Christina. I can feel a powerful presence with him.” The spirit suddenly appeared next to her. He looked as tense as all of them.

“Zael…”, Jesse whispered, Zael's eyes widening. “Is it really this strong?”

“It is”, he confirmed. 

Ashton smiled. “So many spirits at once. It seems they are attracted by strong duelists. So, how about that reunion duel? Still up for that?”

Zael stepped even further back. He was pale and looked scared. “Seems like Zael doesn't want to. What about you, Christina? Aerrow?”

“You want to duel us both at once?”, Aerrow asked. Ashton sneered. “You asked the exact same question all those years ago. It kind of hurts me that you and Christina both immediately consider teaming up against me, but well yeah. I want a battle royal. You know what that means, right?”

“It's a battle in which everyone is fighting everyone”, Yusei whispered. Aerrow and Christina nodded to each other.

“Let's do it.”

They activated their duel disks. “Duel disk...set!”

“Duel!”, they shouted to each other, everyone holding five cards in their hand.

“My turn, I draw!”, Aerrow called. “I summon Unfortunate Spirit in attack mode. Because it's level 3, I roll 3 dice to find out his attack points. It gains 100 per number I roll.” He rolls three dice. They all land at 6. “With this, my monster has 1800 attack points. I set two cards and end my turn.”

“I'll go next! My turn, I draw!” Christina drew a card. “I set a monster and set two cards. Turn end!”

“It's time. I'll show you how much stronger I've gotten. My turn, draw!” Ashton smiled at his 6 hand cards. “I summon Blazing Flame Owl Fire from my hand! If this card is normal summoned, I can add a Polymerization to my hand. And now I'll activate it! I fuse Blazing Flame Owl Fire and Falcon Fire! Fusion summon!” He clapped his hands. “I summon level 6 Blazing Flame Raptor Fire!”

The fire on his field took the form of a ferocious hunting bird. It possessed 2100 attack points. “I activate its effect! I pay 2000 life points and can summon two level 3 Blazing Flame Fire monster from my deck to my field. I summon Blazing Flame Owl Fire and Blazing Flame Falcon Fire! Now I activate Fusion Recovery! Thanks to this card, I can retrieve a Polymerization and a monster I used as a material from my graveyard. I return Polymerization and Blazing Flame Owl Fire to my hand!” He slammed his spell into the duel disk. “I activate the spell Polymerization! I fuse two Blazing Flame Owl Fires and one Falcon Fire to summon Blazing Flame Phoenix Fire!”

The three childhood friends gasped at the monster. Its screech was familiar to all of them. Zael shook his head slowly, stepping further and further back. Any attempts from Chazz or Jesse to calm him down were futile.

“That awakens some memories now, does it? I'm not done yet! I activate Blazing Flame Fire Fusion! I sacrifice half of my life points!” He only had 1000 life points left. He didn't look scared I'm the slightest, however.

“I fuse Blazing Flame Dragon Fire, Lion Fire, and Pegasus Fire to fusion summon!” He clapped his hands for the third time. “I summon level 10 Blazing Flame Chimaera Fire!” 

A third flame took form on his field, screeching out. All of his opponents took an unwilling step back.

“Usually, I could activate Chimaera's effect to pay life points to destroy cards, but I don't have that luxury, so I won't do that. Instead, I'll set two cards and end my turn! You're so lucky I can't attack.”

On Ashton's field were three monsters. First, there was Blazing Flame Raptor Fire. It possessed 2100 attack points. Then there was Blazing Flame Phoenix Fire, with 2800. And finally, Blazing Flame Chimaera Fire with 2800 attack points as well.

“Look how strong my monsters are on comparison to yours.” Aerrow's monster possessed 1800 attack points, Christina's monster was set. “What will you two do? How will you defeat my flames? I can't wait to find out.”

Aerrow and Christina gritted their teeth. 

\---

From left to right: Ashton Lindgren, Christina Euler, Zael Black, Lucas Green-Wiltshire, Aerrow Anderson

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is a bit shorter than usual, but you get artwork for it so its a deal? My sister said Christina is the manliest of them all.

**Author's Note:**

> Here's what I have planned: Characters from the original Duel Monsters, GX, 5D's and Zexal will appear. Sorry for no Arc V or VRains, but as I haven't watched them yet, I can't implement those characters. 
> 
> The focus will be on the GX cast, as Chazz, Jesse, and Zael will be the main characters. There will be a whole bunch of original characters with their own theme decks and "Character Cards", referring to the cards representing the actual Yu-Gi-Oh characters. As an example, if I make a card based on the character Mai Valentine, there'll be an original character who has her in their deck. Zael won't be the only one.
> 
> Update 31st October: Now with XYZ, Synchro and Pendulum summon (coming soon).
> 
> Now to the unimportant stuff: 
> 
> Me after about 9000 words: You separate the Rock an the Star???? Damnit! *writes everything again* If you find a German ROCKSTAR anywhere, please tell me!
> 
> By the way, I only watched the dub of Yu-Gi-Oh. To be specific, the German dub. I know, shame on me. I did watch GX fourth season in Japanese though, wow!
> 
> Thanks for reading, and sorry for the 9800 words! They just wouldn't start dueling...
> 
> BTW, my Twitter @ll4nce has some artwork of Zael and friends, so if you're interested, check it out!


End file.
